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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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tlNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE POPE 



TIs ?ieaf ef ai-ist? Ik ieii ef ike Cteeh. 



BY 



RIGHT REV, MONSIGNOR CAPEL, D,D 

Domestic Pkelate of His Holiness Pope Leo XHI. 



THIRD THOUSAND. 



FPt. PUSTET & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND CINCINNATf. 

1885. 



PRICE, TWENTy-FI\fE CENTS. 



INVALUABLE AS A BOOK OF REFERENCE. 



THE FAITH OF CATHOUCS. (Second Edition ) Confirmed 

bj the Scriptures and attested by the Fathers of the first Five 

Centuries. Compiled by Revs. J. Berington and J. Kirk; 

revised and recast b}" Rev. J. Waterworth, with Preface by 

Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, D.D. 8 vols, octavo, 1,464 

pages, in cloth. Price, net, $6.00. Fr. Pdstet & Co., New 

York and Cincinnati. 

"It is a defense of Roman doctrine of the most legitimate and effective 
kind. It is even at. appeal to the reason and the learning of all who are able 
to appreciate so elaborate, and at the same time, so simple an argument. 
. We may add that the references to the originals are full and 
clear. Of course, AYe do not pretend to have verified them all, nor compared 
with the original of the translated passages. But those which we have veri- 
fied and compared do not convey the impression of any intentional unfair- 
ness." — The American Literary Churchman, an Anglican^paper, Baltimore. 

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important to Protestants as to Roman Catholic teachers and scholars. . . 
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/ 



y,^. 



THE POPE: 



The Vicar of Christ-, the Head of the Church. 



BY 



RIGHT REV. MONSIGNOR CAPEL, D. D. 



^w 



Domestic Prelate of His Holiness Pope Leo XHI. 



THIRD THOUSAND. 




Fr. PUSTET & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS; 

new YORK AND CINCINNATI. 

1885. 




NvUO^fesvA 






s 







i 



^^'O 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by P. J. Thomas, in the office of 
the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



Printed by P, j. THOMAS, 
San FRAh.cisco, Cal. 



PREFACE. 

Is the Pope possessor of supreme and universal 
authority over the whole of the Christian Church, is 
the Pope the Yicar of Christ: are questions of the 
greatest moment to all believers in Christianity. If 
the Pope holds such pov^er and position, then is there 
the absolute need of subjection to him in things 
spiritual. 

The subject has been treated by me from different 
standpoints during my tour in the States. The sub- 
stance of such discourses is now given to the public. 

To meet the demands on time made by the active 
busy life in America, the matter is presented as con- 
cisely as possible and in short chapters. 

The intelligence and general information displayed 
by the people in all parts of the States which I have 
visited permit me, while presenting a small book for 
popular use, to treat the subject for an educated peo- 
ple anxious for solid knowledge. 

To those who wish to prosecute the further study 
of this question I recommend the following works, to 
which I have to express m.y indebtedness: Archbishop 
Kenrick's *' Primacy of S. Peter," Allies' "See of S. 
Peter," Wilberforce's " Principles of Church Author- 
ity," Allnatt's '' Cathedra Petri," and '' Faith of 
Catholics," (Yol. II.,) containing the historical evi- 
dence ot the first five centuries of the Christian era 
to the teaching concerning the Papacy. 

T. J. CAPEL. 

Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 

•1885. 



^ 




UBI PETRUS: IBI BCOLESIA. 

(S. Ambrose, A. D. 385.) 



PRAYER 



FOR UNITY OF FAITH AMONG ALL MEN 



O G-ODj who liast given Thy only begotten Son as a sacrifice of 
propitiation for the salvation of the world, that being lifted up 
from the earth He might draw the hearts of all men to Himself; 
and Who wiliest not that any should perish, but earnestly 
desirest that all should be saved; we humbly beseech Thee, that 
through the wounds and most precious blood of that same 
beloved Son, Thou wouldst graciously look upon all men, in all 
parts of the world, whom the subtlety of error hath deceived or 
the darkness of ignorance hath blinded, and lead them back 
into the way of truth and salvation. Bemember, O Lord, that 
they are Thy creatures; despise not, therefore, the work of Thy 
hands. Begard the tears of Thj Church, the Spouse of Thy 
Son; hear the groans of Thy servants; and grant that all heresies 
and schisms being done away, we may enjoy perpetual peace and 
concord. Grant that all nations, joined to Thee in unity of 
faith and perfect charity, under the government of Peter may 
be brought to the pastures of eternal life; and let there be 
through the whole world One Fold and One Shepherd. So be 
it; so be it, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. 



THE POPE: 

THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE NATURE OF THE PAPACY- 

THE practical experience of life teaches that every or- 
ganized body of men must have a head. A ship has 
its captain, an army its commander, a State its governor, 
a nation its sovereign. 

Admitting that Jesus Christ has established on earth a 
visible society, His Church, then is it to be expected there 
would be a Visible Chief. Nay, admitting that this Church, 
the Kingdom of Heaven, is to embrace the whole earth and 
be one Nation made up of all nations, circumscribed neither 
by time nor by race, then common sense says, so vast an 
organized supernatural and spiritual society stands more in 
need than any other on earth of a Visible Ruler. 

It is precisely this which is asserted and claimed by 
Catholics for the Pope of Home. They say this is what 
Jesus Christ did in the person of S. Peter. And having 
made such Headship or Presidency an essential part of the 
Constitution of the Church, then must it ever be found in a 
continuous line of successors to S. Peter. 

In saying that a Visible Head is given to the Visible 
Church, there is no displacing of Christ. In Him is all 
power, all headship. The Church is His, and from Him 
comes all its spiritual life, imparting feeling and motion to its 
members. The Visible Head is constituted by Christ, to 
be the spring, origin and source of external communion 
and government. 

This is the question now to be investigated. 



6 THE pope: 

1. To understand the nature of the power claimed for 
the Pope, it is necessary to keep in mind that Catholics 
hold that Jesus Christ has established hvo essential and 
indestructible elements in His Church. 

First, the Apostolate, consisting in universal jurisdiction, 
derived directly from Christ. This resides in all its pleni- 
tude, permanently and solely in the Successors of S. Peter. 

Secondly, the One Episcopate, diffused through many 
individuals, exercising corporate jurisdiction in the whole 
world. It resides exclusively in the Body of Bishops who 
are in union with the successor of S. Peter. Each of these 
Bishops, when lawfully appointed, does not possess the whole 
Episcopate, nor part of the Episcopate, but shares in its 
solidarity without dividing it. So, then, though Jesus Christ 
directly gave to His Church the One Episcopate, still each 
individual Bishop receives his authority to rule a diocese 
indirectly, from our Lord, but through Peter's successor. 

The One Episcopate is plainly subordinated to the Apos- 
tolate, but not as its lieutenant. Both are established by 
Jesus Christ. The Episcopate, perpetuating the itpostolic 
College, ever has its unity, its strength, its power, its unfail- 
ing faith, its separate shepherds, because of its union with 
Peter, as a body in fact with its head. In virtue of this 
relationship. Bishops, at Stated intervals, are obliged to 
visit the ' ' limina Apostolorum " and render an account of 
the state of their dioceses. 

Hence the superscription of encyclicals and other letters 
of the Vicar of Christ to the Church, *' N., by Divine Provi- 
dence, Pope"; whilst Bishops in their pastoral letters to 
their diocesans superscribe " N., by the grace of God, and 
by the favor of the Apostolic See, Bishop of N." 

On the relationship of the Bishops to the Pope, the 
Vatican Council says: "But so far is the power of the 
Supreme Pontiff from being any prejudice to the ordinary 
and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which 
Bishops who have been set by the Holy Ghost to succeed 
and hold the place of the Apostles, to feed and govern each 
his own flock as true pastors, that their episcopal authority 



THE YICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 7 

is really asserted, strengthened and protected by the 
supreme and universal Pastor; in accordance with the words 
of S. Gregory the Great: "My honor is the honor of the 
whole Church, my honor is the firm strength of my brethren. 
I am truly honored when the honor due to each and all is 
not withheld." 

The Apostolate and the One Episcopate, as Head and 
Members, are divinely instituted and are two constituent or- 
gans of His Body, "which is the Church." Consequently they 
are essential parts of Christ's kingdom on earth, and must 
ever be found in it, so long as the Kingdom is to exist. 

2. This Apostolate, or Headship of the Church, or Pa- 
pacy, as it is called, contains the office of Supreme Gover- 
nor and Law-giver, of Supreme Judge, of Supreme Doctor 
or Teacher of the Church. 

1. Office of Supreme Governor.— Of which the Vatican 
Council "teaches and declares that by the appointment of 
our Lord, the Roman Church possesses a superiority of 
ordinary power over all other Churches, and that this power 
of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episco- 
pal, is immediate ; to which all, of whatever rite and dignity, 
both pastors and faithful, both individually and collectively, 
are bound by their duty of hierarchial submission and true 
obedience, to submit not only in matters which belong to 
faith and morals, but also in those that appertain to the dis- 
cipline and government of the Church throughout the world; 
so that the Church of Christ may be one flock under one 
Supreme Pastor through the preservation of unity both of 
communion and of profession of the same faith with the 
Roman Pontiff. This is the teaching of Catholic truth, 
from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and of 
salvation." .... 

The decree then goes on to declare: "If any shall say 
that the Roman Pontiff has the office merely of inspection 
or direction, and not full and supreme power of jurisdiction 
over the Universal Church, not only in things which belong 



8 THE POPE: 

to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the 
discipline and government of the Church spread throughout 
the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal 
part, and not all the fulness of this supreme power; or that 
this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate 
both over each and all the Pastors and the faithful, let him 
be anathema." 

In virtue of this Supreme Governorship, (a) the Pope has 
the right to legislate for the whole Church for to him 
belongs the supreme direction of discipline, (b) He alone 
has the right to convoke Councils and to decide where they 
are to be held; over such Councils has he alone the right 
to preside either in person, or by his substitutes, or by his 
after-recognition of them; his confirmation of their decrees 
is needed to make them binding on the Church, (c) To 
the Pope it belongs directly or indirectly to appoint Bishops, 
to transfer them to other dioceses, to permit and accept 
their resignation, and, in case of need, to depose them. 

(d) The Pope alone has the right to create, destroy or modify 
dioceses; to make and unmake archbishoprics, and the like. 

(e) To the Pope alone does it belong to approve of the 
foundation of religious orders in the Church, and, if he so 
judges, to exempt them from the jurisdiction of the Bishops. 
(/) In a word, the Holy Father, in virtue of his office, has 
the right and duty to intervene in all that concerns the 
general good of the Church. To no one on earth is lie 
accountable; indeed, this applies to his lesser offices of Bishop 
of the City of Eome, of Metropolitan of the Roman Pro- 
vinces, of Patriarch in the West. 

ii. Office of Supreme Judge.— The Vatican Council says: 
*' And since, by the divine right of the Apostolic primacy, 
the Roman Pontiff is placed over the Universal Church, we 
further teach and declare that he is the Supreme Judge of 
the faithful, and that in all causes, the decision of which 
belongs to the Church, recourse may be had to his tribunal, 
and that none may reopen the judgment of the Apostolic 
See, than whose authority there is no greater, nor can any 



THE VICAR OF CHEIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 9 

lawfully review its judgment. Wherefore they err from the 
right course who assert that it is lawful to appeal from the 
judgments of the Koman Pontiffs to an Ecumenical Council 
as to an authority higher than that of the Roman Pontiff." 

From every Bishop's court appeal may be made to that of 
the Archbishop, and thence to the supreme and final adjudi- 
cation of the Holy See. 

Besides this regular course of procedure every child of 
the Church has the right to appeal, in spiritual causes, to 
the Pope, inasmuch as he is the ordinary judge of the whole 
Church. His judicial power is over pastors and people. But 
his is the Supreme Court in the Church; his judgment is 
final, from it there is no appeal. 

In virtue of this office, the Pope claims that he ''has the 
right of free communication with the Pastors of the whole 
Church, and with their flocks, that these may be taught and 
ruled by him in the way of salvation." Consequently, 
"those must be reproved and condemned who say that this 
communication of the Supreme Chief with the Pastors and 
the faithful may be lawfully impeded." It is then clearly 
prohibited to all, without distinction, to prevent the Holy 
See from communicating by itself and immediately with the 
faithful, and from treating and defining questions having 
reference to their religious interests. So writes Cardinal 
Jacobini in his letter on the powers of Papal Nuncios. 

To secure free communication at all times, whether in 
peace or in war, between the Pope and his children, an 
independent territory always accessible is needed. Civilized 
nations ought for the moral good of mankind guarantee and 
secure by international treaty such a territory to the 
Sovereign Pontiff. 

iii. Office of Supreme Doctor.— " The supreme power of 
teaching," the Vatican Council proclaims, " is also included 
in the Apostolic, Primacy which the Roman Pontiff, as the 
successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, possesses over 
the whole Church, this Holy See has always held, the per- 
petual practice of the Church confirms, and Ecumenical 



10 THE pope: 

Councils also have declared, especially those in which the 
East with the West met in the union of faith and charity. . . . 

'* To satisfy this pastoral duty, our predecessors ever made 
unwearied efforts that the salutary doctrine of Christ might 
be propagated among ail the nations of the earth; and with 
equal care watched that it might be preserved genuine and 
pure where it had been received 

"The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of 
Peter that by His revelation they might make known new 
doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably 
keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of 
faith delivered through the Apostles 

"This gift, then, of truth and never-failing faith was 
conferred by Heaven upon Peter and his successors in this 
Chair, that they might perform their high office for the salva- 
tion of all; that the whole flock of Christ, kept away by them 
from the poisonous food of error, might be nourished with 
the pasture of heavenly doctrine; that the occasion of schism 
being removed, the whole Church might be kept one, and, 
resting on its foundation, might stand firm against the gates 
of hell." 

Having made this preamble, the Council goes on to 
define that the Pope is possessor of that gift of inerrancy 
or infallibility with which the Divine Eedeemer endowed His 
Church, And that consequently, when the Pope speaks, ex 
cathedra, (as a judge fi'om the bench) in his official capacity as 
Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, doing so by virtue of 
his supreme Apostolic authority, his definitions regarding 
faith and morals are infallible or unerring; and, conse- 
quently, such definitions are of themselves, and not by the 
consent of the Church, irreformable. 

To the office of Supreme Governor and to that Of 
Supreme Judge, the Pope brings learning and wisdom, 
experience and counsel; but, in the exercise of these two 
offices the Roman Pontiff may make errors of judgment. 
Obedience is rendered to his supreme authority, just as 
children render hearty obedience to parents, though they are 
fallible. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 11 

It is not SO in the office of Supreme Teacher. Herein the 
Roman Pontiff cannot err; inerrancy, or infallibility, as it is 
called, is promised in Peter to this function of the Papacy. 
To a supreme and infallible authority is obedience in this 
instance rendered. 

It is necessary to separate the office from the person. It is 
to the former not to the latter that the gift is attached. 
Whether the Pope, in his private capacity, has goodness or 
piety or learning, does not affect his office as Universal 
Teacher. We accept the inspired writings of the Evangelists 
as the Word of God without thinking of the writers. Of 
the Jewish teachers our Lord said: " They sit in the Chair 
of Moses; do as they say, but not as they do." And we have 
the memorable fact of Caiphas prophesying truth at the 
very moment he was iniquitously determining the death of 
Christ; and the Scripture pointedly adds: "And he said 
this not of himself, but because he was the High Priest for 
that year." Impeccability, or freedom from personal wrong 
doing, does not enter into the question of the Pope as 
Supreme Teacher. 

There is no freedom from error promised to the Pope as 
private teacher, theologian, translator of Scripture or au- 
thor. It is only when exercising Apostolic authority, as 
Universal Doctor, to define a doctrine to be believed by 
the whole Church, that the Pope is promised immunity from 
error. 

In treating scientific or historical questions, the Pope has 
no gift of infallibility. This is given him exclusively for 
defining doctrines of faith and morals. For instance, the 
rotation of the earth round the sun, taught by Galileo, is 
not in the field of "faith and morals;" therefore any deci- 
sion made concerning its truth by the Pope would not be 
protected by inerrancy. Yet, as in this instance, it might 
be deemed prudent or necessary to protect the natural 
sense of the Scripture from some scientific theory. 

The Sacred Writers, under inspiration, made known new 
revelations to men. This is no part of the Pope's office; 
inspiration enters not into the prerogative of infallibility. 
The gift is granted to conserve and explain the Revelation 



12 ' THE pope: 

in the Gospel already given to man. Every definition does 
but explicitly state what is already implicitly contained in 
one or other of the truths and laws of the Gospel. Just as 
the decisions of Supreme Courts of Law expound existing 
laws, but do not make new enactments. 

It is the assistance of the Holy Ghost, which is promised 
to make these ex-cathedra definitions infallible. Therefore, 
not being inspired, the Pope of necessity must, before 
defining a doctrine, make use of the ordinary channels of 
theological enquiry. 

Lastly, the infallibility of the Pope is one, and always has 
been one, with the infallibility of the Church. It is the 
same Holy Ghost, abiding for ever with the Spouse of 
Christ, that aids the Church, whether speaking through its 
Head alone, or through its Head and One Episcopate, assem- 
bled in General Council or dispersed in the world, to proclaim 
infallibly what is the Faith once delivered to the Saints. 

This will explain how those who strenuously opposed as 
inopportune the definition of the Infallibility of the Pope, 
yet, as soon as it was defined, heartily accepted it. In 
common with all Catholics they held the Church to be 
endowed with the gift of inerrancy when defining matters of 
Faith and Morals. They admitted the Council of the Vati- 
can, presided over by Pope Pius IX. of happy memory, to be 
an Ecumenical Council; therefore, when the definition was 
made, the "inopportunists," without the least sacrifice of 
principle but as a logical consequence of their belief in 
the infallible authority of the Church, accepted without 
any reserve the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. 

It has to be added, the profession of this article of faith 
is but the expression of what the Popes had been doing 
always. "We all," said Father (now Cardinal) Newman, 
before the definition, " practically if not to say doctrinally 
bold the Holy Father to be infallible." And Gladstone, in 
his notorious " Vaticanism," avows: " The Popes had kept 
up, with comparatively little intermission, for well nigh a 
thousand years their claim to dogmatic infallibility." He 
equally allows that the Vatican Council is, in the Roman 
sense, a General Council. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE TO THE PAPACY 

i. Text from S. Matthew.— It is recounted that our 
Blessed Lord, having come into the district of Cesarea 
Philippi, asked His disciples: '' Whom do men say that 
the Son of Man is ? " They replied that some said John the 
Baptist, and others some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one 
of the prophets. Jesus then said to His disciples, "But 
whom do you say that I am ? " 

" Simon Peter answered and said: ' Thou art Christ, Son 
of the living God.' 

' * And Jesus answering said to him : ' Blessed art tJiou, 
Simon Barjona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it 
to thee, but my Father, who is in heaven. And I say to thee, 
that thou art Peter, and upon this' rock I will build my 
Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
And I will give to thee the Kej^s of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
And whatsoever thoio shall bind upon earth it shall be bound 
also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth it 
shall be loosed also in heaven.' " (xvi. 13-20.) 

1. Looking at the narrative as a whole, it plainly refers 
to one individual, Simon Peter, otherwise Simon Barjona. 
Throughout the passage it is the personal pronoun, second 
person singular, that is used. And it is to the same one 
individual that the promises are made. 

In the next place, the confession of faith in God Incarnate 
is the cause of the promises which Jesus immediately 
makes. The confession, as given in the Greek, is rendered 
singularly emphatic by the repetition of the article, ''Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

In the third place our Lord expressly denies that Simon 
had received the knowledge from man, and asserts that it 
was revealed to him by God the Father; therefore, the con- 
fession of Simon is his own personal act. He is prompted 

(13) 



14 . THE pope: 

to it, not bj ardor of temperament, but by Divine impulse. 
His response is not the commissioned answer of the Twelve;, 
he is not their organ but the organ of *' My Father who is in 
heaven." Hence, though the Master addressed all, "But 
whom do you say that I am ?" still, when Simon had answered, 
the Master rejoins to him alone, "And I say also to.^Aee." 
Of course, Simon, desirous that all should believe, is in this 
sense the mouthpiece of the Apostles, the leader of the 
Apostolic Choir, as S. John Chrysostom says. 

2. Passing to the details of the passage there are two 
principal promises. The first: "And I say to thee : that thou 
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 

The implied contrast in the words '■ ' and I say also to 
thee," as the full rendering of the passage should be, gives 
additional weight to the promises. The implication is either 
" as thou, Simon, hast declared my dignity I now declare 
thine;" or, " since My Father has made known to thee My 
dignity, I reveal to thee thy office." 

The fact of not using in English the word Peter, in simple 
though it is in compound forms, for Stone or Rock, some- 
what mars the force of the English translation. In French 
it is recognizable immediately: " Tu es Pierre, et sur cette 
Pierre je battirai mon Eglise." And in the Syro-Chaldaic, 
in which our Lord spoke, it was as in French: "Thou art 
Cepha, and upon this Cepha I will build my Church." 

Meyer, one of the most eminent New Testament scholars 
of our time, a Protestant, says: "The evasion often taken 
advantage of in controversy with Rome — namely that the 
* rock ' means, not Peter himself but the firm faith and the 
confession of it on the part of the Apostle — is incorrect 
since the demonstrative expression 'on this rock' can only 
mean the Apostle himself." The promise " thou shalt be 
called Cephas" that is Stone or Rock, is now fulfilled and its 
meaning disclosed. 

Jesus Christ is the Builder of His Church, and for its 
special foundation He selects one of the Twelve and calls 
him by the name which very frequently, though not always, 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 15 

is in the Old Testament given to God. What the foundation 
stone is to the building, that was Simon Peter to be to the 
Church of Christ. Solidity, strength and permanence are 
implied in "and upon this Eock I will build my Church." 
The Mighty Architect designed that as long as the Church 
lasted, so long would this foundation exist; or, as S. Am- 
brose tersely puts it : ' ' Therefore, where Peter is there is 
the Church." 

The strength so begotten is indicated and measured by 
the next clause " and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." By this is meant that all the power, the 
machinations of the spirits of darkness, used by themselves 
directly, or indirectly by the world and the flesh to assault 
the Church, can never succeed. The Church will remain 
firm and unshaken, because she is built for all time on Peter, 
the foundation, selected by the All-wise, the Almighty 
Architect. 

This is the plain and natural interpretation of the passage 
to be found in the earliest Christian writers. 

To this another was added later, without denying that 
already given. Simon had received the office of Bock be- 
cause he held and confessed the Divinity of Christ. " And 
no other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ." Therefore, Peter is not primarily 
but secondarily the Rock resting on, and deriving all stability 
from the Rock of Ages. Or, as S. Leo the Great wrote in 
the middle of the fifth century: "For thou art Peter, that 
is, whereas I am the inviolable Rock, I the corner stone 
who made both one, I the foundation besides which no man 
can lay another: yet thou also art a Rock, because thou 
art consolidated by My might that, what things alone are 
Mine, by My power may be common to thee by participa- 
tion with Me." (Serm. iv. in Natal Ord.) And the Church 
built on Peter must ever hold as its stable faith, and con- 
fess that " Christ is the Son of the living God." But the 
Arians denied this very faith. 

Hence then arose the second and collateral interpretation 
of our text, emphasizing the faith and the confession of faith 



16 THE pope: 

of Peter. In note Q to Tertullian's works in the Library 
of the Fathers, attributed to the pen of the late Dr . Pusey, 
it is stated that Tertullian, S. Cyprian, S. Gregory Nazi- 
anzen and others interpret the Rock of S. Peter's person; 
then Augustine is cited as explaining the Rock sometimes 
of S. Peter personally, sometimes of Christ (and we know 
from IS. Augustine's Retractations, Book 1, c. xxi., that he 
leaves to the reader the choice of either explanation) ; lastly, 
the note cites Theodoret and others who interpret the 
Rock of Peter's confession, and then the following judg- 
ment is passed: " These explanations, however, in no ivay 
exclude each other. The words were pronounced to S. Peter 
by virtue of the true Faith in Christ which he had just 
confessed; he was a rock by reason of his union with the 
Rock; that Faith in Christ as the Son of God was his 
stability, and that of the Church afterwards, and of those 
who at any time were pillars of the Church." This coming 
from an Anglican Episcopal source, will, it is hoped, have 
extra weight with non-Catholics." 

3. The second promise is contained in the words: ''To 
thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and 
whatsoever thou shall bind upon earth it shall be bound 
also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth it 
shall be loosed also in heaven." 

The previous figure represented Peter as the foundation 
stone of the Church. In this promise the figure is changed 
to being the Key-Holder of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, 
Christ himself had the "key of the house of David upon 
His shoulders: and He shall open and none shall shut: and 
He shall shut and none shall open." Supreme authority is 
clearly expressed in these two last sentences, and the 
whole passage is applied in the third chapter of Revelation 
to Christ's Supreme Dominion over His Church. 

As "the Rock," Christ was pleased to make Simon the 
Rock also; so now. He who alone by right and might is the 
Key-Holder of the house of David, appoints this same 
Simon Peter to be Key-Holder of the Kingdom of Heaven^ 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF TEE CHURCH. 17 

Keys, by every usage, sacred and profane, are the com- 
mon symbols of power, of authority and sometimes of 
possession. And the giving of keys has been the outward 
expression of investiture and of taking possession. 

Simon Peter is to be so invested. The words of the 
promise instead of expressing any restriction, do, on the 
contrary, bear the widest signification. The Keys of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, that is, of the whole Church, without 
aiiy limitation of time, are to be given. And the spiritual 
authority, which they symbolize and confer, is to be exer- 
cised over all matters lohatsoever that may be of interest to 
the Kingdom. 

Thus did Peter receive directly and immediately from our 
Lord Jesus Christ a Primacy of Jurisdiction over the whole 
Church. 

" If thou thinkest Heaven is closed," says Tertullian, 
*' remember that the Lord left here the Keys thereof to Peter 
and through him io the Church." Origen says: '* We may 
discover much difference and pre-eminence in the words 
spoken to Peter over and above those spoken to the Apostles 
generally in the second place. For it is no small difference 
that Peter received the Keys not of one Heaven but of many." 
S. Optatus, in like manner: "For the good of unity, blessed 
Peter both merited to be preferred before all the Apostles, 
and he, alone, received the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
that he might communicate them to the others." S. Gregory 
of Nyssa : ' ' Through Peter He gave to bishops the Key of 
the supercelestial honors." S. Pacian says: "According 
to the relation of Matthew himself. He spake a little above 
to Peter; He spake to one that from one He might lay the 
foundation; afterwards delivering the very same command 
in common to all.'' (Ep. iii. 26). S. Cyprian writes to 
Jabianus: " To Peter, first, on whom He built the Church 
and from whom He appointed and shewed that unity should 
spring, the Lord gave that power that whatsoever he should 
loose on earth should be loosed in heaven." (Ep. Ixxii. 7). 
Lastly, not to tire the reader, Chrysostom writes : ' ' Peter, 
Avho was set over the whole habitable world; into whose 



18 THE POPE : 

hands He put the Keys of Heaven; to whom He entrusted to 
do, and to support all things; him He ordered to tarry here 
(Antioch) for a long time." (See Cathedra Petri, p. 18-23). 

It must be remembered that when our blessed Lord 
promised the Keys to Simon Peter, He continued: *' What- 
soever thou shalt bind, whatsoever thou shalt loose," etc., the 
words being in the singular number. But two chapters 
later S. Matthew recounts that, the Twelve Apostles being 
together, Jesus says : * ' Whatsoever you shall bind, whatso- 
ever you shall loose," etc. (xviii. 18). 

Here are precisely the same words, used in the plural 
number, but without the promise of the Keys, that were 
said in the singular to Simon. He first receives alone what 
is given to them collectively ^ he, himself, being one of them. 
And commenting on the words, S. Leo the Great says: 
"The right of this power (of the Keys) passed also, indeed, 
to the other Apostles; and the constitution of this decree 
has flowed on to all the princes of the Church; but not in 
vain is that entrusted to one which is intimated to all. For 
to Eeter is this therefore entrusted individually, because the 
pattern of Peter is set before all the rulers of the Church. 
The privilege of Peter therefore remains, whatever judgment 
is passed in accordance with his equity." (Serm. iv. in Nat. 
Ord. 3). 

Yenerable Bede writes A. D. 700: ^^ Blessed Peter in a 
special manner received the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
and the judiciary potver, that all believers throughout the 
world might understand that all those who in any way sepa- 
rate themselves from the unity of his faith and communion, 
such can neither be absolved from the bonds of their sins, 
nor enter the gate of the Heavenly Kingdom." (Hom. xvi.) 

ii. Text from S. Luke.— At the Last Supper, and on the 
eve of our Blessed Lord's death, he speaks these words: 
"Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, 
that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee 
that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted, con- 
firm thy brethren." (xxii. 31-2.) 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 19 

1. The change from the plural you, the assembled Apos- 
tles, io thee, Simon, is at once apparent. The adversary of 
the human race had demanded that he might, by strong 
temptation, sift the faith of all the Apostles. 

To secure their faith and to preserve it when under such 
assaults, Jesus the Omnipotent prays absolutely that the 
faith of one shall be unfailing. Then Simon's faith having 
been established by the power obtained through this prayer, 
he is commanded and consequently authorized to strengthen 
the brethren in that faith in which he himself had been 
solidly established. 

Jesus first renders Simon's faith stable, and Simon in turn 
is appointed to give stability to the faith of his brethren. 
Their strength of faith is derived through Peter, as Peter's 
is through Christ. It is the faith of the whole Body being 
pj'eserved through the unfailing faith of the infallible Head. 

2. Fourteen hundred and more years ago S. Leo the 
Great writes : ' ' As the Passion drew on, which was to shake 
the firmness of His disciples, the Lord saith, ' Simon, 
Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may 
sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for iJiee that thy faith 
fail not; and when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren,' 
that ye enter not into temptation. The danger from the 
temptation of fear was common to all the Apostles, and they 
equally needed the help of divine protection, since the devil 
desired to dismay, to make a wreck of all; and yet the Lord 
takes care of Peter in particular, and asks specially for the 
faith of Peter, as if the state of the rest ivould he more certain 
if the mind of their chief were not overcome. So then in Peter 
the strength of all is fortified, and the help of divine grace is 
so cn''dered, that the stability which through Christ is given to 
Peter, through Peter is conveyed to the Apostles. Therefore, 
since we see that so great a safeguard has been divinely in- 
stituted for us, reasonably and justly do we rejoice in the 
merits and dignity of our Leader." (Serm. 4, vol. i.) 

The contrast between the frailty of Simon in denying our 
Lord three times, and the strength conferred for his future 
office, adds the greatest weight to our Blessed Lord's words. 



20 THE pope: 

iii. Text from S. John.—*' When, therefore, they had 
dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of .John^ 
lovest thou Me more than these ? He saith to Him : Yea^ 
Lord, thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him:: 
Feed my lambs. He saith to him again : Simon, son of 
John, lovest thou Me ? He saith to Him : Yea, Lord, thou 
knowest that I love Thee. He said to him : Feed my lambs. 
He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest 
thou Me ? Peter was grieved because He had said to him 
the third time, lovest thou me. And he said to Him : Lord, 
thou knowest all things : Thou knowest that I love Thee. 
He said to him: Feed my sheep." (xxi. 15-17.) 

1. The days of our Lord's earthly sojourn were coming 
to an end. The Ascension was near. The "little flock" 
had till then been under the loving direction of Jesus the 
Good Pastor; and now, before leaving earth, does He ap- 
point to the whole flock another shepherd. 

The same Simon, son of John, who had already been con- 
stituted the Rock of the Church, the Key-Holder of the 
Kingdom, the Confirm er of his Brethren, is now made and 
appointed Shepherd. S. Chrysostom remarks: ''After so 
great an evil — the denial of Christ — He again raised him 
(Peter) to his former honor, and intrusted to his hands the 
Primacy over the Universal Church." (Hom. v. de Poenit.) 

When Simon was made the foundation-stone of the Church 
the expression of his most ardent faith was elicited; now a 
triple confession of his love is exacted. Then is the whole 
flock — lambs and sheep, people and pastors — by the judg- 
ment of the Lord Himself, the Shepherd of Shepherds, 
committed to Simon. The flock still belonged to Christ, for 
He still speaks of "My lambs, My sheep;" but into His ever- 
lasting pastorate does He in a special manner appoint Peter 
to participate, so that the Fold on earth should there be 
ruled and fed by a visible Shepherd and by Shepherds 
depending on him. 

To sum up the Gospel evidence : to Simon alone is given 
the ofiice of permanent Foundation-stone of the Church; to 



THE YICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHUECH. 21 

Simon alone is given universal jurisdiction over the whole 
Church as its Key-Holder; to Simon alone is given the office 
of infallibly strengthening or confirming his brethren; to 
Simon alone is entrusted the pastoral government of the 
One Fold, the Church of Christ. And it is of grave impor- 
tance to remark that "the gates of hell are not to prevail 
^against the Church, because she is built on Peter. The 
brethren are to be strengthened through Peter's unfailing 
iaith. The flock is to be ruled by Shepherds under Peter's 
guidance of them. 

Bossuet, the famed Eagle of Meaux, admirably expresses 
this truth in these words: " We shall find in the Gospel 
that Jesus Christ, willing to commence the mystery of 
unity in His Church, among all His disciples chose 
twelve; but that, willing to consummate the mystery of unity in 
.the same Church, among the twelve, he chose one. . . . Say 
not, think not, that the ministry of S. Peter terminates with 
him; that which is to serve for support to an Eternal Church 
can never have an end. Peter will live in his successors. 
Peter will always speak in his Chair. This is what the 
Fathers say. This is what six hundred and thirty Bishops 
at the Council of Chalcedon confirm. . . . 

" It was, then, clearly the design of Jesus Christ to put 
first in one alone luhat afterwards He meant to put in several ; 
but the sequence does not reverse the beginning, nor the 
j5rst lose his place; .... that power given to several car- 
ries its restriction in its division, ivhilst power given to one 
alone, and over all, and without exception, carries luith it 'pleni- 
tude, and, not having to he divided with any other, it has no 
hounds save those lohich its terms convey.'' (Serm. on the 
Unity of the Church.) 

Admit that these plain words of our Lord conferred a 
Primacy of Jurisdiction on Simon, the son of John, and 
how easy it is to explain that the name of Simon always 
stands first in the three lists of the Apostles given in the 
Gospels, though the same order of names is not followed. 
It gives a new light to preaching from Peter's bark; to our 
Lord paying tribute for Himself and Peter; to upbraiding 



22 THE pope: 

Peter, of the sleeping Apostles in Gethsemane; to the 
risen Master wishing that '! the disciples and Peter " be told 
of His resurrection. 

iv. Facts from the Acts of the Apostles.— "The Acts 
of the Apostles/' written under inspiration, gives us the 
record of the earliest days of the Church. It would be 
naturally argued, if Simon Peter was possessed of Supreme 
Authority, then ought we to find it exercised. Such is the 
case. Indeed, the first fifteen chapters, which refer to the 
Church generally, and not, as in the last thirteen, to the 
work of one Apostle, give as prominent a place to Peter as 
the Gospels do to the Divine Master. 

''It is Peter who appoints that one shall be elected to the 
place of Judas, and presides at the election. It is Peter 
who stands up with the eleven on Pentecost Day to preach 
the Gospel; and it is to Peter and the eleven that the 
multitude reply. It is Peter, though accompanied by John, 
who performs the miracle on the lame man at the gate of 
the Temple. It is Peter who on that occasion explained in 
Solomon's Porch the power of Christ. It is Peter, though 
both he and John are arrested, who makes the defense. 

' ' The punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, the anathema 
on Simon Magus the first heretic, the first visiting and con- 
firming the Churches under persecution, were all Peter's 
acts. If he was sent with John by the Apostolic College to 
the new converts at Samaria, he was himself member and 
President of that College." (Dollinger: First Age of the 
Church). 

It is to Peter that God makes known that between Jew 
and Gentile there is to be no wall of separation. Accord- 
ingly, in the Council at Jerusalem, Peter settles this doctrinal 
point, and the Gentiles are not to be circumcised. The 
disputants held their peace; Paul and Barnabas did but 
recount their mission among the Gentiles; S. James only 
confirms Peter's decision by reference to the Scripture. 
The judgment given by James, who as Bishop of Jerusalem 
presided, rests on the accepted doctrinal decision, and refers^ 
only to the disciplinary rule which would produce peace. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 23 

Jesus says of Himself that He came but to ' ' the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." To Peter likewise was more especial- 
ly entrusted the conversion of the Jews, whilst'to Paul was 
the care of the Gentiles. This is a mere division of work. 
It is not the formation of two Churches, the exercise of inde- 
pendent authorities. For, though S. Paul had been in- 
structed in the Gospel and had been appointed to the 
Apostolate by direct revelation, still he goes up to Peter 
and confers with him fifteen days before undertaking his 
special office. In speaking of Peter, S. Paul, as S. John 
Chrysostom remarks on the passage in the Corinthians: " I 
am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of 
Christ," preferring Peter greatly before himself, he has ar- 
ranged his statement on an ascending scale. Indeed, com- 
menting on I. Cor. ix. 5, S. Chrysostom says: "See Paul's 
wisdom: he puts the Chief last, for the strongest of the 
heads of the argument are reserved for that place." 

S. Paul withstood Peter to the face for withdrawing from 
eating with the Gentile converts at Antioch. This was con- 
trary to the liberty which had been declared at Jerusalem, 
and it appeared like vacillating. But it was no error in 
teaching on the part of S. Peter, only an error of judgment, 
which S. Paul resisted. A child might do the same to a 
father without claiming or destroying his authority. 

We may conclude, the history of the Church given in the 
inspired Acts of the Apostles fully corroborates the state- 
ment of the Gospel, that Peter is the Rock on which the 
Church is built, the Key-Holder of the Church, the Con- 
firmer of his Brethren, the Shepherd of the One Fold. 

3. To fulfill the onerous duties consequent on the care and 
solicitude of all the Churches, the Supreme Pastor is aided 
by diverse agencies : the College of Cardinals, the Roman 
Congregations, Legates, and the Religious Orders. 

Through these the Pope is able to use the eyes, the ears, 
the experience, the judgment of men selected for their 
knowledge, their wisdom, their good sense, their virtue. 



24: THE pope: 

The College of Cardinals is composed of seventy members 
when the number is complete. Six of these are Cardinal 
Bishops holding the suburban Sees of Rome. Fifty are 
■Cardinal Priests having the titles of the Parishes in Rome, 
and fourteen rank as Cardinal Deacons. They may be of all 
nations, and are appointed solely by the Pope. They are 
the counsellors of the Holy Father; they take an active 
part in the govenrment of the Church. Sitting under the 
presidency of the Supreme Pontiff, they form a Consistory, 
a kind of Senate. When the Holy See is vacant the Cardi- 
nals protect and maintain the government of the Church; 
they in Conclave constitute the body of Electors for the Suc- 
cessor of S. Peter. 

The Roman Congregations correspond to Departments 
of State in the civil order. Of these there are eleven more 
important. Each has one set of affairs committed to it. 
The Propaganda, for instance, is concerned with foreign 
missions; the Inquisition, the highest tribunal of Holy 
Church, presided over by the Pope, adjudicates on all 
charges against faith; the Congregation of the Index has the 
censorship of books; that of Bishops and Regulars takes 
cognizance of the relations of Bishops and the Religious 
Orders. These Congregations are composed of a competent 
number of Cardinals, and are organized with presidents, 
secretaries, theologians, canonists and other officials. The 
decisions of these congregations, of course with the ap- 
proval of the Pope, are to be taken as his decisions, and 
are final for the individual. 

Legates of the Holy See are ambassadors or representatives 
of the Sovereign Pontiff, entrusted with his power in such 
measure as he may deem expedient, to be exercised by them 
in the manner and form prescribed by the Pope. Even 
when accredited to Governments, these ambassadors of the 
Holy See are not merely diplomatic agents; they also have 
authority with regard to the faithful and to religious matters. 

Thus is established the means whereby the Holy Father 
is brought into closer and more immediate communication 



THE TICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 25 

witli his children, and they with him. Indeed, where such 
Legate or Kepresentative is permanent in a country, there 
can be a permanent Apostolic Court of Appeal. 

These Delegates of the Pope are truly his lieutenants, 
bearing according to circumstances the names of Legates, or 
Nuncios, or Inter-nuncios, or Apostolic Delegates. They are 
sent wheresoever the Sovereign Pontiff wills, in virtue of his 
Primacy and Supremacy over the Universal Church, which 
gives him the right to intervene in every diocese, and to 
exact obedience to his decisions. 

Bishops ruling Sees are not lieutenants of the Pope. They 
are true Pastors "placed by the Holy Ghost" ; they suc- 
ceed to the position of the Apostles; they have ordinary and 
immediate jurisdiction in their dioceses. The Episcopate 
being divinely instituted, neither Pope nor Council can 
destroy it. 

The jurisdiction of Papal Nuncios and their relations with 
the Bishops of the countries to which they may be accredited 
are very succinctly and clearly expressed in an important 
letter of May, 1885, from the Pope's present Secretary of 
State, His Eminence Cardinal Jacobini. 

The Religious Orders are founded by the authority and 
with the approval of the Supreme Pastor, who can exempt 
them as he may judge best from the jurisdiction of the 
Bishops. These organized bodies depend on the Holy See, 
and bear the spirit of Rome and of the Church wherever 
they may be established. They can put their best subjects 
at all times at the disposal of the Sovereign Pontiff and aid 
the Pope in the government of the Church. They can 
be flying columns to the Great Army of God, immediately 
subject to its Commander-in-Chief. 

4. Bishops and priests receive their sacred character and 
sacerdotal power through the Sacrament of Order. The 
power given to the Pope is not sacramental, it is the power 
of jurisdiction. '^ Now, that power," says Suarez, '^is not 
given to the Pontiff by any consecration, but by election and 
the grant of God. For, when He said to Peter ' Feed My 
h eep,' He impressed on him no new consecration or 



26 THE pope: 

character, but gave him simply the power of jurisdiction. So, 
too, the Pope, lohen rightly elected, is immediately true Pope, 
and as to that receives no consecration. Nay, if not already 
a bishop or a priest, he must be afterwards consecrated or 
even ordained, and nevertheless, in the meantime, he can 
exercise all acts of mere external jurisdiction" (as Pope.) 
(De Leg. iv. 4.) 

No Pope can nominate his successor. The appointment 
of the Sovereign Pontiff is by election ; and the manner of 
such election has varied much in the history of the Church. 
Now-a-days, the Cardinals in Conclave constitute the body 
of Electors. Two-thirds of their votes legitimately indicate 
the new Visible Head of the Church, who, accepting the 
office, in that moment receives in its fulness, universality 
and sovereignty, spiritual jurisdiction from the fountain of 
all power, Jesus Christ, the. Invisible Head of the One Flock. 

The Pope has still to work out his salvation by believing all 
and every truth taught by Holy Church, and by using the 
means of sanctification established by Christ. In this he 
is precisely as the simplest member of Christ's Kingdom. 

In his new office the Pope, while restricted by the deci- 
sions and traditions of the past, has to act on his own res- 
ponsibility. The circumstances and times in which each 
Pope lives, give an individual character to each Pontiff's 
reign. The Holy Spirit is continuously aiding, by special 
grace, the Supreme Pastor to meet the daily needs of the 
Flock. In all this the Pope is the judge of his actions, is 
accountable to none on earth, and abides the judgment of 
the Shepherd of Shepherds. 

The newly-elected takes a new name, and he is "His 
Holiness the Pope, Bishop of Rome, Yicar of Jesus Christ, 
Successor of S. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, Supreme 
Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West,. 
Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the 
Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Dominions of 
the Holy Roman Church." He superscribes as "N., by 
Divine Providence, Pope." He is addressed '^Your Holi- 
ness " or " Most Holy Father." In official documents he 



THE VICAK OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 27 

speaks of himself as ^' Servant of the Servants of God." 
The latter comes from Pope S. Gregory the Great, A. D. 
590-604. The Patriarch of Constantinople, John, then liv- 
ing, ambitiously usurped the title of Universal Bishop. 
*' It is a lamentable thing," says S. Gregory, " to be forced to 
suffer patiently, that, despising all others, my brother and 
fellow-bishop, John, endeavors to be called the only Bishop." 
(Lib. V. Ep. xxi.) When it was applied to Gregory the 
Great, implying that he alone was Bishop, he strongly 
objected to it and selected " Servus Servorum Dei." 

This rejection of "Universal Bishop" has been construed 
into a denial on the part of S. Gregory of the Supremacy of 
the Sovereign Pontiffs. But facts prove such a construction 
to be erroneous. The very title had been used in the 
Council of Chalcedon. S. Gregory himself writes: " It is 
evident to all who know the Gospels that by the voice of the 
Lord the care of the whole Church was committed to holy 
Peter, the Prince of all the Apostles. For to him it is said: 
. . . 'Thou art Peter,' etc. Behold the Keys of the 
Heavenly Kingdom; the power of binding and loosing is 
given to him; to him the care and government of the whole 
Church is committed." (Lib. v. Ep. xx.) And elsewhere 
S. Gregory says: "Who is ignorant that the holy Church 
is established on the firmness of the Chief of the Apostles, 
who in his name expressed the firmness of his mind, being 
called Peter, from the Kock." (Lib. vi. Ep. iii.) Once more 
S. Gregory writes : ' ' And as to what they say concerning 
the Church of Constantinople, who doubts that it is subject 
to the Apostolic See ? This is constantly avowed by our most 
pious Emperor, and by our brother, the Bishop of that 
city." (Lib. ix. Ep. xii.) 

To these very precise statements concerning the Suprem- 
acy of the See of Peter have to be added the acts of S. 
Gregory. It was he who sent S. Augustine to convert 
Anglo-Saxon Britain; it was he who commanded S. Augus- 
tine to be consecrated Bishop by Virgilius, the Primate of 
Aries in France; it was he who established the Arch- 
bishoprics of Canterbury and York, with their suffragan 



28 • THE POPE: 

bishoprics; it was he who made S. Augustine first Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. And, in conferring Archiepiscopal 
Jurisdiction, S. Gregory says: '' We giYe you ^?o authority 
over the Bishops of France because the Bishop of Aries 
received the pallium (the emblem of Archiepiscopal Juris- 
diction) in ancient times from my predecessors, and ive are 
not to deprive him of the authority he has received. . . . But 
as for the Bishops of Britain we commit them to your care." 
<Bede i. c. 27). 

These acts and this teaching show that S. Gregory re- 
jected the title but not the office of Universal Bishop. 



CHAPTER III. 

S. PETER WAS BISHOP OF ROME. 

The tradition of the Church found in the pages of Chris- 
tian writers from the earliest days, engraved in the monu- 
ments and catacombs of Bome, witnessed in the constant 
pilgrimages to the Eternal City, is that S. Peter first 
established his see at Antioch and afterwards at Rome, 
where he was Bishop twenty-five years, and was there 
crowned with martyrdom. It is not pretended by this that 
the Apostle resided continuously in the Eternal City for 
that period, but that he held the See during a quarter of a 
century previous to his death. 

Just as some of the Popes who lived at Avignon, and had 
never been in Rome, nevertheless were Bishops of Rome; 
so, in like manner, S. Peter having fixed his see in Rome, it 
is not of the essence of his bishopric that he should have 
been actually present or have continuously resided there. 
The facts of S. Peter's residence for some time in Rome and 
of his martyrdom there are, however, incontestible. 



THE YICAE OF CHEIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHUECH. 29 

i. Assertions of Non-Catholics.— The eminent Protestant 
antiquarian, Dr. Cave, says: "We intrepidly affirm, with 
all antiquity, that S. Peter was at Borne and for some time 
resided there. . . . All, both ancient and modern, will, I 
think, agree with me that Peter may be called Bishop of 
Home in a less strict sense, inasmuch as he laid the founda- 
tions of this Church and rendered it illustrious hy martyrdom.''' 
(Ssec. Apos. S. Pet.) 

2. The distinguished Protestant Bishop Pearson, who died 
in 1686, writes in his ' ' Two Dissertations on the Series and 
Succession of the Pirst Bishops of Rome": "That S. 
Peter was at Rome is proved from Ignatius, Papias, Diony- 
sius of Corinth, IrensBus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, 
Origen, Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Epi- 
phanius, Julian the Apostate, Augustine, Palladius. There- 
fore it is ivonderfid that those can Ije found ivho deny that Peter 
was ever at Rome.'' (Diss. i. c. 7.) 

3. The Protestant Archbishop Bramhall writes : ' ' That S. 
Peter had a fixed chair at Antioch, and after that at Rome, is 
what no man ivho giveth any credit to the ancient Fathers and 
Councils and historiographers of the Church can either deny or 
ivell doubt of" (Works, p. 628, ed. Oxford.) 

4. Dean Milman, the Protestant historian of Latin Chris- 
tianity, writes: "Before the end of the third century the 
lineal descent of the Bishops of Rome from S. Peter was unhesi- 
tatingly claimed and obsequiously admitted by the Christian 
luorld." (Yol. iii. p. 370.) 

5. Another Protestant historian, Canon Robinson, lately 
Professor of Church History in King's College, London, 
writes: " It is not so much a spirit of sound criticism as a 
religious prejudice, which has led some Protestants to deny 
that the Apostle (Peter) was ever at Rome, ivhere all ancient 
testimony represents him to have suffered, together loith 8. Paid, 
in the reign of Nero." (Yol. i. p. 4.) 



so THE POPE: 

6. Another learned and renowned Protestant, Grotius, 
says, in a note on "The Church that is at Babylon elected 
together with you, saluteth you " (1 Pet. v. 13): " Ancient 
and modern interpreters differ about this ' Babylon.' The 
ancients understood it of Rome, where that Peter luas, no true 
Christian will doubt. ^' 

7. On this passage the notorious Dr. Dollinger writes : 
*' St. Peter's own testimony in his first Epistle raises to a 
certainty the fact of his having been at Rome. The letter 
is written from a city he calls Babylon. This cannot 
reasonably be understood of the Egyptian Babylon, a 
strong fortress and station of a Roman legion; and thus the 
question arises whether it is Babylon on the Euphrates, or 
whether, according to a method of speech very natural to 
the Jews of that day, from the usage of the Prophets, it 
means Rome. The latter is the belief of the Ancient 
Church, following a tradition of the Apostolic age, to which 
Papias bears testimony. 

''That St. Peter had passed over the boundaries of the 
Roman empire into Parthia to Babylon on the Euphrates, 
that there was already a Christian community there, and 
that from thence the Apostle salutes the believers to whom 
he is writing — this is more than improbable. Strabo and 
Pliny mention Babylon as 'a great desert,' which, chiefly 
from the neighborhood of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, had 
become emptied of inhabitants (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26; 
Strabo, xvi. 738). The towns of Nearda and Nisibis were 
the principal Jewish settlements in the Babylonian Satrapy; 
the Jews moved from Babylon several years before St. Peter 
could have come there, because they could not hold out 
against the heathen inhabitants, who were hostile to them; 
and soon afterwards another emigration took place on 
account of a pestilence. Five years later more than 50,000 
Jews were put to death in Seleucia by the Syrians and 
Greeks, and the remainder went, not back to Babylon, but 
to Nearda and Nisibis (Josephus, Arch, xviii. 9); the only 
inference therefore to be drawn from Josephus's History is, 
that at the date of St. Peter's Epistle there were no longer 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 31 

any Jews in Babylon; and so, too, Agrippa, in his speech at 
the beginning of the Jewish war, knew of no Jews to name 
beyond the Jordan, except those in the province of Adiabene. 
That S. Mark, who was in ' Babylon ' (1 Pet. v. 13) with 
the Apostle, was at Kome at the precise time when there is 
every reason to believe that this Epistle was written, is clear 
from St. Paul's mentioning him (Col. iv. 10, Philem. 24). 
Soon after he was staying in Asia Minor, whence St. Paul 
recalled him to Rome (2 Tim. iv. 11), shortly before his 
death." (First Age of the Church, pp. 97, 98). 

In his History Dollinger once more writes : ' ' The 
Roman Church must have been founded by an Apostle, and 
that Apostle can only have been Peter. St. Paul declares, 
in his Epistle to the Romans, that he had often withstood 
his longing to come to them, because he made a principle 
of only bringing the Gospel where Christ had not yet been 
preached, so as not to build on another man's foundation. 
But now, after the Church had been founded in the West, 
he was going into Spain, and would visit Rome on the way 
(Rom. XV. 20-24). He was unwilliDg, then, at that time to 
undertake a regular Apostolic office in Rome, 'because the 
foundation was already laid.' By whom? St. Paul cannot 
possibly have meant by the chance visit of some nameless 
believer, or by those who returned from Jerusalem and 
related what they had heard there; he found irregular pre- 
announcements of that kind in most churches, to which he 
none the less devoted his special energies. He cannot, in 
a word, mean it was his principle only to teach where no 
one had preached the Gospel before him; for, on the one 
hand, no intelligible ground for such a rule can be 
imagined, — on the other, the contrary is proved by his 
labors in Antioch and Cyprus, and his anxious care and 
earnest exhortations written to the community of Colossae, 
which was unknown to him personally. He must refer, 
therefore, to his former agreement with the great Apostles 
at Jerusalem, and the position he took towards them, 
according to which he desired to abstain from meddling 
with their work, or building on a foundation laid by them. 



32 THE POPE: 

There can be no doubt, then, that it was St. Peter, perhaps^ 
accompanied by St. John, who had laid the foundation in 
Rome. 

'* The formation of a Church at Eome, in the centre of 
the Empire, where the number of Jews was greater and 
their position more important than at any other town out of 
Judea excepting Alexandria, was far too important a matter 
to be left to chance. . . . While all the principal Churches 
have their tradition about the men to whom they owe their 
first foundation, Peter is marked out, both by the universal 
tradition of all Churches and the special tradition of the 
Eoman, as the founder and first ruler of that Church, and 
is said — which comes to the same thing — to have first gone 
to Rome under Claudius." 

In face of these positive assertions made by writers, some 
of latest date, learned in Christian antiquity and not mem- 
bers of the Eoman Church, it is unnecessary to do more 
than cite a few of the more striking testimonies on which 
they relied. 

ii. Early Witnesses.— The Father of Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, Eusebius, (a Greek, let it be remembered). Bishop of 
Csesarea, died about 340. The first nine books of his 
Church History were, according to the modern scholars 
Lightfoot and Wescott, written before 315, that is, but two 
hundred and forty-nine years after the death of S. Peter. 

Eusebius, who was possessed of rare capability and thirst 
for knowledge, had access to the unrivalled collection of 
Christian works made by Pamphilius, and also to the library 
of Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem. Many of those works 
are now lost, and it is in the pages of Eusebius that the 
knowledge of ecclesiastical literature of the second century 
is in great part to be found. 

1. Eusebius refers in different places in his writings to 
the fact that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome. Sufiice it to 
quote one passage from his Chronicles: " Peter the Apos- 
tle, the first Pontiff of the Christians, when he had first 



THE VIOAE OF CHEIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHUECH. 33 

founded the chair at Antioch, 'proceeds to Rome, where, preach- 
ing the Gospel, he continues for twenty-five years Bishop of that 
city:' 

2. Eusebius cites Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, who, 
when writing in 170 to the Roman Christians, states that 
both the Corinthian and Eoman Churches were ^^ planted''' 
by Peter and Paul. 

3. S. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who himself tells us of his 
friendly relations with S. Polycarp, the disciple of the Apos- 
tle S . John, writes, about the year 190, in his work against 
heresies, concerning the Roman Church as the " greatest, 
most ancient, known to all, founded and constituted by the most 
glorious Apostles Peter and Paul" He then gives the names 
of the Popes from S. Peter down to Elutherius, "who now 
in the twelfth place holds the office of the Episcopate from 
the Apostles." (Adv. Haer. iii. 3). 



4. S. Clement of Alexandria, the head of the Catecheti- 
cal School of Alexandria about 190, relates that: "When 
Peter had proclaimed the word publicly at Rome, he allowed 
S. Mark to reduce his sayings to writing." (Cited by 
Eusebius Hist. Ecc. Lib. vi., c. 14). 

5. Tertullian, who lived from A. D. 154 to 220, writing 
against heresies pretending to claim Apostolic origin, sug- 
gests that an appeal be made to the succession of the 
bishops in each See and so learn what is Apostolic doctrine. 
"If thou art near to Italy," he says, "thou hast Rome 
whence we also have an authority at hand. That Church 
how happy on which the Apostles poured out all their doc- 
trine, with their blood; luhere Peter had a like passion with 
the Lord, where Paul is crowned with an end like the 
Baptist's." (De Prsescript Hseret). 

6. S. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, wrote about A. D. 
255 to Antonianus: "Cornelius was made Bishop (of 
Rome) by the judgment of God and His Christ, by the 



34 THE pope: 

testimony of almost all the clergy by the suffrage of the people 
who were present; at a time when no one had been made 
(bishop) before him; when the place of (Pope) Fabian, that 
is when the place of Peter, and the rank of the sacerdotal 
chair were vacant." (Ep. 5^). 

7. About the year 372, S. Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, whom 
the great S. Augustine numbered among the most renowned 
Doctors of the Church, when striving to convince Parmenian 
that the Donatists were schismatics, writes: *' You cannot 
then deny that in the city of Pome the Episcoval Chair was first 
established by Peter, in which Chair sat Peter, the Head of the 
Apostles.'^ (Lib. ii, c 2.) And a little later on, S. Optatus 
gives the succession of the Bishops of Rome, from S. Peter 
down to Pope Siricius, then living. 

8. S. Jerome, half a century later, in his Catalogue of Ec- 
clesiastical Writers, says : ' * Simon Peter, after presiding as 
Bishop of the Church of Antioch and preaching to those of 
tUe Circumcision dispersed in Pontus, Galacia, Cappadocia, 
Asia and Bithynia, in the second year of Claudius, went to 
Rome to vanquish Simon Magus, and there, for five and twenty 
years, he held his sacerdotal chair, until the last, that is, the 
fourteenth year of Nero, by whom being crucified with his 
head downwards, he was crowned with martyrdom." . 

9. S. John Chrysostom, who, before becoming Archbishop 
of Constantinople, was priest and preacher at Antioch from 
381 to 398, says: " And, as I have named Peter, I am 
reminded of another Peter (Flavian, Bishop of 
Antioch), our common father and teacher, who has both 
inherited Peter s virtue and his Chair. Yea, for this is one 
privilege of this our city that it had at first as teacher, the 
leader of the Apostles. For it was befitting that that city, 
which before the rest of the world was crowned with the 
Christian name, should receive as shepherd, the J^irst of the 
Apostles. But after having had him as our teacher we did 
not retain him, but surrendered him to regal Bome.^' (Tom. 
iii., Hom. ii.) 



THE VICAR or CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 35 

And so, writer after writer of the early centuries asserts or 
implies that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome. Indeed, the 
very See itself is usually referred to in the Acts of Councils, 
in imperial documents and in Christian writers as the 
*' Chair of Peter," "the Place of the Prince of the 
Apostles," "the Episcopal Chair in which sat Peter, the 
Head of the Apostles." 

ill. The Voice of Monuments.— The monuments and cata- 
combs of Eome bear their testimony to the residence of S. 
Peter in the Eternal City. 

1. There is the majestic Basilica containing the relics of 
the martyred Apostle, which inspired the words of Byron: 

" But thou of temples old, or altars new, 

Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 

Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook His former city, what could be 

Of earthly structures, in His honor piled, 
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, • 

Power, glory, strength, and beauty — all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

" Enter; its grandeur overwhelms thee not; 

And why? it is not lessened; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 

Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 

Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined. 

See thy God face to face, as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow," 

The gorgeous temple of our day has under its glorious 
dome the crypt, the only remnant of the Basilica built at 
the request of Pope Sylvester by Constantino. The work, 
begun in 316, at which this Christian Emperor labored with 
his own hands and carried away twelve loads of earth in 
honor of the Twelve Apostles, did in turn but replace the 
Oratory founded A. D. 90 by Anicletus, Bishop of Kome. 
He is said to have been ordained by S. Peter. The Oratory 
marked the spot where many Christian martyrs had suffered 



36 THE pope: 

in tlie circus of Nero and where S. Peter was buried after 
his crucifixion. Anastasius recounts how the body of S. 
Peter was exhumed, when the Basilica of Constantino was- 
erected, and re-interred in a shrine of silver enclosed in a 
sarcophagus of gilt bronze. (Hare's Walks in Eome, pp. 
570-2.) 

2. While S. Peter's covers the sacred remains of the 
Prince of the Apostles, the Churches of S. Pudentiana, of S. 
Pietro in Carcere with its Mamertime prisons, of S. Pietro 
in Yinculo, of S. Pietro in Montorio, of the Domine-Quo- 
Vadis, can each give its traditional connection with the 
life, or the labors, or the martyrdom of S. Peter in Rome. 

' ' One hundred and fifty years, " says Gibbon, ' ' after the 
glorious deaths of SS. Peter and Paul, the Vatican and the 
Ostian Road were distinguished by the tombs or rather the 
trophies of those spiritual heroes. In the age which fol- 
lowed the conversion of Constantino, the Emperors, the 
consuls and the generals of armies, devoutly vis\ted the 
sepulchres of a Tent-maker and a Fisherman, and their 
venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ, on 
which the Bishops of the Royal City continually offered the 
Unbloody Sacrifice." (Decline and Fall, R. E. chap, xiv,) 

3. Well may Dr. Nath'l Lardner, another distinguished 
Protestant writer, say with regard to this whole tradition : 
*'It is easy to observe that it is the general, uncontradicted, 
disinterested testimony of ancient ivriters in the several parts 
of the ivorld — Greeks, Latins, Syrians. As our Lord's predic- 
tion concerning the death of S. Peter is recorded in one of the 
four Gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe 
the accomplishment of it, which must have been in some 
place. And about this place there is no difference among 
Christian ivriters of ancient times. Never any other place was 
named besides Rome. Nor did any other city glory in the 
martyrdom of Peter. There were disputes in the second 
and third centuries between the Bishop of Rome and other 
J3ishops and Churches about the time of keeping Easter and 



THE VICAE OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 3T 

about the baptism of heretics. Yet none denied the Bishop 
of Rome to have what they called the Chair of Peter. 

"It is not to our honor nor our interest, either as Chris- 
tians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained 
by early and well-attested tradition." (Hist, of the Apostles 
and Evangelists, Ch. xviii.) 

4. '*It is difficult," says Wilberforce in his Principles of 
Church Authority, chapter 9, " to understand how such a 
question can have been seriously raised, since there is 
scarcely an ancient (Christian) writer who does not either 
assert or allude to his (S. Peter's) residence in that city 
(Rome)." Wilberforce was Archdeacon in the Episcopal 
Church of England when he wrote the famed book from 
which this extract is taken. But having completed the 
w^ork, he resigned his position and joined the Church of 
Rome. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO THE PAPACY. 

i. The Papacy a Present Fact —In the whole world there 
is but one bishopric known as '' The Apostolic See:" there 
is but one episcopal throne known as " The Chair of Peter." 

That bishopric, that throne is at Rome, the centre of au- 
thority and the seat of government of the Church which 
alone calls itself, and is alone called by friend and by foe 
^' The Catholic Church." 

To express that the "Chair of Peter" is the "root and 
womb of the Catholic Church," as S. Cyprian wrote to Pope 
Cornelius sixteen hundred and thirty years ago, the Church 
is called the "Roman Catholic Church" — Roman then not 
from nationality, but because the headship, the centre of 
authority, the seat of government of Christ's Kingdom on 
earth are at Rome. 



38 THE pope: 

Our holy lord, Leo XIII., occupies to-day the Chair of 
Peter, and exercises the Apostolate of Peter throughout the 
world. 

In union with, and in submission to Pope Leo XIII. are 
some nine hundred bishops, governing as many dioceses. 
These collectively constitute the One Episcopate established 
by Jesus Christ, by which the Apostolic College is per- 
petuated. 

The latest and lowest estimate puts at two hundred and 
seventy-five millions those who render obedience in things 
spiritual to Leo XIII. Of all nations, and tongues, and 
forms of government, they form one compact, organic body 
under the Pope of Home. Political persecution and 
worldly criticism have, by God's mercy, done good. Never 
has history presented the Church better knit together in its 
members with its Head. And so the Papacy, possessed of 
everlasting youth, is a living, visible fact in the world. 

Its action is no less manifest. From his high watch-tower 
our holy Father, Leo XIIL, observes the signs of the times. 
He, aided by wisdom, experience and divine help has, 
through encyclical letters, instructed the world at large, and 
the children of the Church in particular, concerning the 
sacred fundamental laws of religious, civil and domestic 
society. His Holiness has, in like manner, raised his voice 
against the enemies, secret and avowed, of social order. 
On his subjects the holy Father has earnestly inculcated the 
union of all hearts in the cause of holy Church; an increase 
of piety and devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ through the 
holy Rosary; a spirit of unworldliness and of alms-giving 
by laboring under the banners of S. Francis of Assissi and 
of S. Vincent of Paul; an extension of the sacred and pro- 
fane sciences among the clergy; a loyal obedience of peo- 
ple to pastors and of people and pastors to the Holy See, 
and finally the Father of the Faithful has, " moved by the 
consciousness of the greatest, the most holy, that is. Apos- 
tolic obligation, issued the most memorable encyclic out of 
the fourteen, on The Christian Constitution of States." 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 39 



To secure the fullest exercise and extension of holy 
Church, Pope Leo XIII. has labored to have closer rela- 
tion with Catholic Governments; to non-Catholic rulers he 
has extended the right hand of friendship; and even with 
Mahometan and pagan sovereigns has he entered into com- 
munication. 

These varied acts done at different times have been borne 
by steam and electricity to the furthermost parts of the 
earth. They have been published and commented on in 
the press of the civilized world. And so the name of the 
Pope has become a household word in every land and the 
teaching of the Papacy a familiar fact. 

The assemblies of Catholic Bishops around the Chair of 
Peter on the occasions of proclaiming the Immaculate Con- 
ception of the Blessed Virgin, the Canonization of the 
Japanese Martyrs, the Jubilee of Pius IX. of happy 
memory, and the Vatican Council, have made the men of 
the nineteenth century conversant with the present living 
powers of the Papacy. 

ii The Papacy a Contin-aoTis Past Fact-— Our present 
Pope is the two hundred and fifty-eighth successor of S. 
Peter. That long, venerable, glorious line of Roman Pon- 
tiffs can be traced as a river to its source . It stands out as 
prominently in the life of the Church as does the succession 
of rulers in the story of a country. In one sense the history 
of Christianity is the history of the Popes. 

Profoundly interesting as it is to trace the glories, the trials, 
the vicissitudes of the Papacy, yet our purpose will be bet- 
ter served by concentrating attention on some oije period, 
and therein to judge by facts whether the rights and pre- 
rogatives of the Pope now claimed, were then exercised. 

The fifth century, that is, from A. D. 400 to 500, in the 
middle of which the first of the Leos sat on the " Chair of 
Peter," is singularly suited for such an examination. 

The Church had passed through its three centuries of 
persecution. The Edict of Milan, A. D. 313, according lib- 
erty to the Christian religion, allowed the Church freedom 



40 THE pope: 

to grow and unfold, as does a plant, developing from witliin 
the organs and powers which God the Son had given to her 
constitution. "The grain of mustard seed" was becoming 
a tree. The baby Church, born Pentecost-day, waxed strong, 
its different members exercising their appointed functions. 
By A. D. 400, the Church was planted in every part of the 
Roman Empire. She had erected her Basilicas, and in 
these temples of the true God she gave pomp and grandeur 
to her liturgy. Already had two of her General Councils 
been held. 

To use an epithet of our day, the Church in the fifth 
century was '' undivided ^ The voices of the Greek or 
Eastern Bishops were united with those of the Bishops of 
the West. The Schism came not till the middle of the ninth 
century. I 

Nor can the False Decretals of Isidore Mercator be urged 
in this century against the prerogatives of the Papacy, for 
they did not make their appearance till about A. D. 840. 

Then while the Church was exercising, in the fifth century, 
her power to stem the flood of heresies which had come, 
and to convert the hordes of Huns, Yandals and Northmen 
that swept down on the Roman Empire, she was singu- 
larly strong in saintly and learned bishops and priests. 
It is sufficient to name S. John Ghrysostom, S. Augustine 
(who had been taught by S. Ambrose), S. Cyril of Alexandria, 
S. Jerome, S. Peter Chrysologus, S. Vincent of Lerins, S. 
Leo the Great, with Socrates and Sozomen, the historians. 

It will be readily conceded that the testimony of the fifth 
century must therefore be of the greatest weight in deter- 
mining whether the Bishop of Rome is by divine right the 
Supreme Head of the Christian Church. 

iii The Testimony of Writers of the 5th Century.— 
1. The century opens with S. John Chrysostom in the See 
of Constantinople. He died in 404. This eminent Doctor of 
the Church, in his work on the Priesthood, writes: " Why 
did Christ shed His blood? That he might obtain posses- 
sion of these very sheep which He entrusted to Peter and to his 
successors.''^ (Bk. ii. n. 1.) 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 41 

Now, of Peter, S. Chrysostom elsewhere sajs: *' Peter, 
the head of the Choir of the Apostles, the mouth of the 
disciples, the pillar of the Church, the buttress of the faith, 
the foundation of the Confession, the fisherman of the uni- 
verse, he who raised up our race from the depths of error 
even to heaven, he who was ardent and full of confidence, 
yea, rather full of love, when all the rest remained silent, came 
up to the Master and said ''how often shall my brother 
offend," etc. (Horn, de Dec. Mill, 3.) 

Keferring to St. Peter's denial of Christ, S. John Chrys- 
ostom says: ''After so great an evil He (Jesus) again raised 
him to his former honor and intrusted to his hands the 
Primacy over the Universal Church.^' (Hom. V. de 
Poenit. 2.) 

And, commenting on S. John, xxi. 15, the Saint writes : 
"And why, then, passing by the others, does He (Jesus) 
converse with Peter on these things? He was the chosen 
one of the Apostles, and the mouth of the disciples, and 
Leader of the Choir. On this account also Paul tvent upon 
a time to see him rather than the others. And, withal, to shew 
him that he must have confidence, as the denial was done 
away with, He (Jesus) puts into his (Peter's) hands the Pres- 
idency over his brethren, and he brings not forward that 
denial, neither does he reproach him with the past, but 
says to him 'If thou love Me ride over the brethren,' .... 
and the third time He gives him the same injunction, 
shelving at lohat a price He sets the Presidency over His oiun 
sheep. And if any one should say how then did James re- 
ceive the throne of Jerusalem ? This I would answer, He 
appointed this man (Peter) Teacher, not of that Throne hut of 
the World.'' (Hom. Ixxxviii. in Joan.) 

And S. John Chrysostom, suffering from the violence and 
intrigue of Theophilus, writes in 404 to Pope Innocent, as a 
subject to his Superior, and says: "Now that you have be- 
come acquainted with all these things, my most honored 
and religious Lords, display that vigor and zeal which 
becomes you, so as to suppress so great a wickedness 
which has invaded the churches. . . . Vouchsafe to 



42 ' THE pope: 

write back that what has been wickedly done bj one party, 
whilst I was absent, and did not decline a trial, has no 
force, and indeed it has not in its own nature; and that they 
who have been proved to have acted thns against all law, be 
subjected to the laws of the Church; and allow us to enjoy 
uninterruptedly your letters, and love, and all the rest, as we 
formerly did. . . . Having stated all the above matters, and 
you having learnt everything more clearly from the religious 
lords, my fellow-bishops, bring to this matter for me, I be- 
seech you, that zeal which is required at your hands." (Ep. 
i. ad. Innoc.) 

2. From the Bosphorus we turn to Egypt, to another 
eminent Prelate, S. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, raised 
to that dignity eight years after the death of S. John 
Chrysostom. 

Commenting on the text S. Matt. xvi. 16, Cyril says: 
Jesus '' promises to found the Church, assigning immova- 
bleness to it, as He is the Lord of virtues, and over this 
(the Church) He sets Peter as Shepherd." 

In like manner on Luke xxii. 31, the Saint says: 
^' Therefore passing by the other disciples He (Jesus) comes 
to the Coryphoeus (Peter) himself . . . 'and fchou be- 
ing once converted, confirm thy brethren;' that is, become a 
Support and a Teacher to those who come to Me by faith." 

Writing on Mary the Mother of God, Cyril addresses 
Nestorius in these words : ' ' That these things are really so, 
let us produce a witness most worthy of faith, a most holy 
man, and Archbishop of the whole habitable World, that Coeles- 
tine, who is both Father and Patriarch of the mighty City of 
Borne, who himself also exhorted thee by letter, bidding 
thee desist from that maddest of blasphemies, and thou didst 
not obey him.'' (Faith of Catholics, vol. ii. p. 83.) 

S. Cyril presided, by the authority of Pope Coelestine, in 
his place, over the Third General Council held at Ephesus. 
On that occasion Cyril said in the Council: " Let the letter 
received from the Most Holy Pope Coelestine, Bishop of the 
Apostolic See, be read to the Synod with becoming honor." 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 43 

3. Our next witness is the illustrious S. Augustine, 
Bishop of Hippo. He is the voice of North Africa while S. 
Cyril was yet living. 

Writing against the Manicheans : " / am held, " says he, 
''m the Communion of the Catholic Church, by . . . the 
succession of priests from the very Chair of the Apostle 
Peter, to whom the Lord after His resurrection committed 
His sheep to be fed, even to the present Episcopate." (Cont. 
Man. Fund. 5). To the Donatists in like manner S. Augus- 
tine says: " Come my brethren if you wish to be grafted in 
the vine. . . . Reckon up the bishops from the very See of 
Peter. . . . That is the Rock which the proud gates of hell 
do not destroy." These words plainly show that S. Augus- 
tine realized to the full the words of his Spiritual Father, S. 
Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan: ^' Where Peter is, there is 
the Church." 

S. Augustine says of Peter: ''By reason of the Primacy 
of his Apostolate he represented the person of the Church, 
and was a type of its universality." (In Joan, cxxiv., 5.) 
And writing against Faustus, Augustine says: "Peter was 
made Pastor of the Church, as Moses was made the Ruler of 
the Jewish People." (Lib. xxii., c. 70.) And once more: 
"It was the will of Christ to make Peter, to whom he com- 
mended His sheep as to another self, one with Himself, that 
so he might commend His sheep to him; that He might be 
Head, and the other bear the figure of the body, that is, the 
Church, and that like man and wife they might be two in one 
flesh." (Serm. xlvi., 30.) Finally: "For if the order of 
bishops, succeeding to each other, is to be considered, how 
much more securely and really beneficially do we reckon 
from Peter, himself, to whom, being as a figure of the 
Church, the Lord says: 'Upon this Rock I will build my 
Church and the gates of hell shall not overcome it.' For to 
Peter succeeded Linus," and he gives the succession down 
to Pope Anastasius then living, and continues: " In thig 
order of succession no Donatist bishop appears." (Ep. liii. 
Genoroso). 

These instances, from among many that might be cited. 



44 THE pope: 

shew in the clearest way that S. Augustine believed Peter 
to hold the Primacy of authority, to be the Supreme Pastor 
and Ruler of the Church. An interesting passage, wherein 
Augustine compares S. Cyprian to S. Peter, brings out 
pointedly the primacy of the latter: "I think that the 
Bishop Cyprian may, without any insult to himself, be com- 
pared to the Apostle Peter as far as regards the crown of 
martyrdom. But I ought rather to be afraid of being 
contumelious towards Peter. For who knows not that 
primacy (or princedom) of the Apostleship is to be preferred 
before any Episcopate whatever ? But, although the grace 
of the Chairs is widely different, yet one is the glory of the 
martyrs." (De Bapt. Cont. Donat, Lib. ii. n. 2). 

Of the Roman Church he says in it: " The Primacy of the 
Apostolic See has always been in force." (Ep. xliii. Glorio. 
n. 7.). And elsewhere: "The Chair of the Roman Church 
in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius now sits." 
{Cont. Lit. Petilian, Lib. ii. c. 15.) 

S. Augustine, with the Bishops of the Councils of Car- 
thage and Milevis, turned to Pope Innocent for the confir- 
mation of the decrees which had been drafted, " wishing 
it," say they in their letter, "to be decided whether their 
little streamlet floived from the same source whence came the 
abundance of the Head.'' 

The Pope replied to both Councils. In the first letter he 
says: "You have referred to our judgment, knowing what 
is due to the Apostolic See, since all who are placed in this 
position desire to follow the Apostle himself, from whom the 
very Episcopate and all the authority of this title spring. 
Eollowing whom, we know as well how to condemn the evil 
as to approve the good." Then he continues: '' In pursu- 
ance of no human hut a divine sentence, the Fathers have 
decreed that whatever was being carried on, although in the 
^most remote provinces, should not be terminated before it 
ivas brought to the knowledge of this See, by the full author- 
ity of which the just sentence should be confirmed." 

And, in the second letter, Pope Innocent says : " Especially 
so often as a matter of faith is under discussion, I conceive 



THE VICAE OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 45 

that all my brethren and fellow-bishops can only refer to 
Peter; that is the source of their own name and honor, just 
as your affection hath now referred, for what may benefit all 
churches in common throughout the ivorld. For the inventors 
of evils must necessarily become more cautious when they 
see that, at the reference of a double Synod, they have been 
severed from ecclesiastical communion hy our sentence.'' 

S. Augustine, after the confirmation of the decrees by 
Pope Innocent, and having the Pope's letters in mind, sums 
up the history of Pelagi^nism by saying: *'The decisions of 
the two Councils on this matter have been sent to the Apos- 
tolic See; whence, also, the replies have come. The cause 
is ended; may the error soon terminate also." (Serm. cxxxi.) 

More is not needed to shew S. Augustine's belief in theory 
and in practice in the Supremacy of the Roman See; and 
this notwithstanding his protestation with that of his African 
fellow-bishops in the affair of Aspiarius against the arrogance 
of the Pope's representatives. 

Augustine's words, just cited, have given rise to the oft- 
repeated apothegm: "Rome has spoken; the cause is 
finished." 

4. From Augustine in North Africa we turn to Cassian 
the Monk, the founder of Monasticism in the West. He had 
been brought up in a monastery at Bethlehem; and we may 
fairly claim him as a witness to the teaching in Palestine. 
Cassian died about 440. Writing on the Incarnation, he 
says: " You would fain have the authority of a greater in- 
dividual, .... let us interrogate the greatest — that disciple 
amongst the disciples, that teacher amongst the teachers, 
who, ruling the helm of the Roman Church, as he had the Pri- 
macy of Faith, so also had the Primacy of the Priesthood. Tell 
us, then, toll us, O Peter, Prince of the Apostles, how the 
churches are to believe in God; for it is just that thou 
shouldst teach us who wast thyself taught of the Lord, and 
that thou shouldst open to us the gate of which thou 
receivedst the key." (Da Incar. liii.) 



46 THE POPE: 

5. S. Yincent of Lerins, priest and monk, is our next 
witness. He died about 445. Twelve years before, he com- 
pleted and published ia clear and elegant language his 
" Commonitorum " against schismatics and heretics. 

Having asserted that " in the Catholic Church itself very 
great care is to be taken that we hold that which has been be- 
lieved everywhere, always andhy all men,'" S. Vincent illustrates 
what he means by this, universality, antiquity and consent. 
He then points out how an army of confessors and martyrs 
in common with all religious men '' go counter to novel 
inventions." And he continues: *'Such examples are 
everywhere plentiful. But not to be prolix we will select 
some one, and and this in preference from the Apostolic See, 
that all men may see more plainly than the sun's light with 
what force, what zeal, what endeavor the blessed succession of 
the blessed Apostles ever defended the integrity of religion once 
received. In days past, therefore, Agrippinus of blessed 
memory. Bishop of Carthage, the first of all mortal men, 
against the divine Scripture, against the rule of the Univer- 
sal Church, against the sense of all his fellow-priests, 
against the custom and institutes of our forefathers, held 
that baptism ought to be repeated. . . . When, therefore, 
on every side men reclaimed against the novelty of the 
thing, and all the priests in every direction, each according 
to his zeal, did oppose, then Pope Stephen of blessed memory, 
Prelate of the Apostolic See, resisted with the rest of his 
colleagues, indeed but still beyond the rest; thinking it, I 
suppose, becoming that he should eoccel all the rest as much in 
devotion for the Faith as he surpassed them in authority of 
place. In fine, in an Epistle which was then sent to Africa, 
he gave a decree in these words, ' Nothing is to be innovated, 
nothing but what has been handed down.' . . . What, 
therefore was the result of the whole business ? What, 
indeed, but the usual and accustomed one. Antiquity, to wit, 
was retained; novelty exploded." (Adv. Haeres. n. 6). 

6. We now turn to Italy to hear the teaching of the 
learned S. Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Eavenna, from 



THE VICAK OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHUKCH. 47 

433 to 454. He writes to Eutyches tlie heretic : " We exhort 
you, honored brother, that in all things you obediently attend 
to those things which have been written by the most blessed 
Pope {Leo) of the City of MomSj because blessed Peter, who lives 
and presides in his own See, gives, to those who seek, true faith. 
For we, in our solicitude for peace and true faith, cannot, 
without the consent of the Bishop of the Roman City, hear 
causes of faith." (Faith of Catholics, vol. ii. p. 89). 

And in his sermon on the 99th Psalm, the same Saint 
says: ''Hence it is that, when about to return to heaven, 
He {Jesus) commends His sheep to be fed by Peter in his stead ^ 
(Serm. vi.) 

And, once more: "Let Peter hold his long-established 
Primacy over the Apostolic Choir; let him open to those who 
enter the kingdom of heaven." (Serm. cliv.) 

7. Our next witnesses are the Greek historians, Socrates 
and Sozomen, who lived and wrote in the fifth century. 

Socrates says : "Athanasius was scarcely able to reach 
Italy ... at the same time also Paul of Constanti- 
nople, and Asclepas of Gazse, and Marcellus of Ancyra, and 
Lucius of Adrianople, who had each for different causes 
been accused and driven from their churches, are found to 
be ill that regal city, Rome. They make known their several 
cases to Julius, Bishop of Pome, and he, as is the prerogative of 
the Church that is at Pome, armed and strengthened them 
with authoritative letters, and sent them back to the East, 
having restored to each his own See, and severely blaming 
those who had rashly deposed them. And they having de- 
parted from Rome, and confiding in the letters of Bishop 
Julius, recover their churches." (Hist. Ecc. Bk. ii. c. 15.) 

Sozomen narrates the same facts concerning the appeals 
of these bishops of the East to Pope Julius. Of the 
Pope's letters he says: "And as, on account of the dignity of 
his throne, the care of all pertains to him, he restored to each 
his own Church." And referring to the letter of the same 
Pope Julius to the Arian bishops, he cites from it these 
words: " It is a sacerdotal law, that the things done con- 



48 THE pope: 

trary to tlie sentiment of the Bishop of the Eomans be- 
looked upon as null." (Hist. Ecc. Bk. iii, c. 8.) 

This same Sozomen elsewhere having named those who 
denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and the Catholic 
Bishops who defended it, adds: " This important question 
being agitated, and, as was to be expected, daily increasing 
in importance by the eagerness for disputation, when the 
Bishop of Eome learnt this, he with the priests of the West 
wrote to the Churches of the East to worship a con substan- 
tial and equally glorious Trinity. And after this had been 
done, they were all silent, and this important question 
seemed settled, as having been once for all decided hy the judg- 
ment of the Church of the Romans.'' (Hist. Ecc. Bk. vi. c. ^2.) 

8. Theodoret, Bishop of Cja^us, in Palestine, was charged 
with sympathizing with the doctrine of Nestorius. The 
*' Robber Council "had deposed him, but he appealed to 
Pope Leo the Great and was restored to his episcopal dig- 
nity; and because of Pope Leo's action, Theodoret took his 
seat in the Council of Chalcedon. In his letter of appeal 
to the Pope, Theodoret says: " If Paul, that herald of the 
truth, that trumpet of the Holy Ghost, repaired to Peter to 
bring from him an explanation to those of Antioch who were 
disputing concerning questions of the law, with much greater 
reason do we, who are so worthless and lowly, hasten to 
your Apostolic Throne to receive from you a cure for the wounds 
of the churches, for it pertains to you to hold the Primacy in all 
things.. For your throne is adorned with many preroga- 
tives .... These (Peter and Paul) have made your 
throne most illustrious; this is the culminating point of 
your blessings. And their God has even now made illus- 
trious their throne, having established therein your Holi- 
ness, emitting the rays of orthodoxy. . . . But 1 await 
the sentence of your Apostolic throne. . . . Do not, I 
pray you, reject my supplication nor despise my miserable 
gray hairs so insulted after so many labors. But above all 
things,! beg to learn from you whether I must needs acquiesce 
in this unjust deposition, or not; for I await your sentence. 



THE YICAB OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 49 

And should you command me to abide by what has been 
adjudged, I will do so, and to no one will I give further 
trouble, but will await the just judgment of our God and 
Saviour." (Ep. cxiii. Leoni.) 

9. We close our references to individual writers by citing 
from the African Bishop, Victor Vitensis, who wrote the 
History of the Persecutions under the Yandals. He died 
in the year 490. **If the king," says Bishop Victor, '^wish 
to know which is the One True Faith let him send to his 
friends, and I, too, will write to my brethren that my fellow 
bishops may come — men who may be able, with me, to 
demonstrate to you our common faith, and especially the 
Roman Church, luhich is the head of all the churches ^ (De 
Per sec. Afric. Bk. iii.) 

These saintly writers of the fifth century, renowned for 
learning, holding responsible ecclesiastical dignity in 
various parts of the Church, representatives of many 
nations, knew nothing of a mere honorary primacy, nor of 
the human institution of the papacy, nor of the limitation 
of papal power to a Western Patriarchate. They hold 
and practically profess that the Bishop of Eome is ap- 
pointed, by God, Supreme Pastor of the whole Church. 
They did what is expressed in the Canon of S. Patrick 
of A. D. 450: "If any case cannot easily be decided 
in that See (the local one of S. Patrick) ... we have 
decreed that it be sent to the Apostolic See, that is, to the 
Chair of the Apastle Peter, which holds authority in the 
Citv of Eome." 

iv. The Testimony of Councils in the 5th Century.— 
Pelagianism was making considerable progress in North 
Africa. To stem it two provincial Synods were held at Car- 
thage and Milevis in 416. In each case, when the assembled 
Bishops, had completed the work of the Synod and had con- 
demned the Pelagian heresy, the decrees were sent to Pope 
Innocent at Rome for confirmation. 



50 THE pope: 

1. The sixty-eight bishops of the Council of Carthage write : 
''These proceedings of ours, Lord and Brother, we have 
thought are to be made known to your holy charity, that to 
the statutes of our lowliness may be added the authority of 
the Holy See for the defence of the salvation of many, and 
the correction of the perversity of some." 

*'They implore," says Milman, the Protestant historian, 
** the dignity of the Apostolic Throne, of the Successor of 
S. Peter, to complete and ratify what is wanting to their 
more moderate power." (Hist. Lat. Christ. Bk. ii. c. 2.) 

Indeed, the Fathers of the Council say this in so many 
words: " We do not pour back our streamlet for the pur- 
pose of increasing your great fountain. . . . We wish it to 
be decided by you whether our stream, however small, flows 
forth from that same head of rivers whence comes your own 
labundance; and by your answers to be consoled respecting 
.our common participation of grace." (Ep. clxxvii. n. 19.) 

Pope Innocent replies by commending the Bishops for 
^* keeping to the precedents of ancient tradition," *'for 
knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, knowing that all 
of us who have been placed in this position desire to follow 
the Apostle, from whom the Episcopate itself and the whole 
authority of this title has been derived. With him for our 
model, we both know how to condemn what is evil and to 
approve of what is commendable." (Ep. clxxxi.) 

2. From the Council of Milevis the fifty-nine Fathers write : 
^' As the Lord by the sovereign gift of His own grace has 
placed you in the Apostolic See ... we beseech you that 
you would vouchsafe to apply your pastoral diligence . . . 
thinking that those (the Pelagians) who hold such pernicious 
opinions will more easily yield to the authority of your 
Holiness, derived as it is from the authority of Holy Scrip- 
ture." 

To the Fathers Pope Innocent replies: ''Carefully, as was 
befitting, do you consult what is the secret wish of this 
Apostolic dignity (a dignity, I repeat, upon which falls, 
besides those things that are without, the solicitude for all 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 51 

the churches) as to what opinion is to be held in matters of 
such moment; having herein followed the pattern of an 
ancient rule, which you, equally with myself, know has 
always been observed by the whole world. . . . Wherefore 
we do, by the authority of the Apostolic Power, declare 
Pelagius and Coelestius, the inventors of novel words, . . . 
deprived of the Communion of the Church." (Ep. xxx. ad 
Con. Meliv.) 

The great S. Augustine, who, with other African Bishops, 
signed these letters, says that Pope Innocent "wrote back 
to us on all these matters in a manner that was right and 
becoming in the Prelate of the Apostolic See." (Ep. 
clxxxvi. Paulino, 2.) And, preaching a little later, S. 
Augustine says: "Already the decisions of two Councils 
have been sent to the Apostolic See, whence, also, replies 
have been received. The cause is ended. Would that the 
error may likewise presently terminate." (Serm. cxxxi. n. 
10.) 

3. From these Provincial Synods we may pass to the 
Third General Council, that of Ephesus. It was con- 
voked, with the consent and approbation of Pope 
Coelestine, by the Emperors of the East and West, Theodo- 
sius and Valentinian, in 431. 

It was this Pope, it will be remembered, who sent S. 
Patrick and S. Palladius to convert the Irish. The same 
Pope appointed Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, with Lupus, 
Bishop of Troyes, to visit Britain, and there defend the 
Catholic Faith against Pelagianism. 

The convoking of the Council of Ephesus was necessitated 
by the heretical teaching of Nestorius, Bishop of Constan- 
tinople, concerning the number of Persons in Jesus Christ. 
S. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, tried to win Nestorius to the 
true doctrine but failed. Both appealed to Pope Coelestine. 
The decision was that Nestorius should recant within ten 
days or be deposed. Nestorius refused. Cyril was com- 
missioned to pronounce sentence of deposition. "Arming 
yourself," says Pope Coelestine, "with the authority of this, 



52 THE POPE: 

our See, and using our Succession, you shall, with resolute 
severity, put in execution this sentence." (Ep. xi.) In hiS' 
Arcliiepiscopal City of Alexandria, 8. Cyril published 
twelve anathemas against Nestorius. He responded with 
twelve other anathemas. 

To declare the true faith, and to bring about concord, the 
Council of Ephesus was convoked. It opened its first ses- 
sion on June 22d, 431. There were one hundred and sixty 
Bishops present; but by the end of the first session they 
numbered one hundred and ninety-eight. They were almost 
all Bishops of the East. 

As the original documents of the Council, as well as later 
writers, shew, S. Cyril of Alexandria presided as Kepresen- 
tative of Pope Coelestine. Besides delegating his own 
authority to Cyril, the Pope sent three Legates — Philip, a 
priest, and two bishops, Arcadius and Projectus. 

In his letter to the Council the Pope says that he had 
sent these Legates to be present at what was done ^^ and to 
execute what lias been previously ordained by us. To whom we 
doubt not that assent will -be given by your Holiness.'" 
(Ep. xviii.) 

After the letters of Pope Coelestine had been read, and 
received with acclamation, one of the Legates (Philip) said; 
*'We acknowledge our thanks to the holy and venerable 
Synod, that, the letters of our holy and blessed Pope having 
been read to you, you have united your holy members, by your 
holy voices and acclamation, to that holy Head; for your Blessed- 
ness is not ignorant that the Blessed Peter, the Apostle, was the 
Head, of all the Faith, as also of the Apostles^ (Act. ii.) 

In the first session of the Council sentence of deposition 
was pronounced against Nestorius. 

Concerning this deposition one of the assembled Fathers, 
Firinus, Bishop of Cappadocia, said: "The holy Apostolic 
See of the most holy Bishop Coelestine has already, by the^ 
letter sent to the most holy Bishop Cyril, prescribed the sen- 
tence and the order to be observed in the present course. We 
have adhered to this, and have put that decree into execution, 
pronouncing the canonical and apostolic judgment on him " 
(Nestorius). 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OP THE CHURCH. 53 

The sentence of deposition was read a second time in the 
third session, and on that occasion the Legate, Philip, said: 
"* ' It is a matter of doubt to none, yea, ratker it is a thing 
knoivn to all ages, that the holy and most Blessed Peter, the 
prince and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the Faith, the 
foundation of the Catholic Church, received the Keys of the King- 
dom from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour and Redeemer 
of mankind. And to him was given authority to bind and 
loose sins; who even till this present, and always, both lives 
and judges in his successors. Wherefore our holy and most 
blessed Pope Coelestine, the Bishop, the canonical successor and 
holder of his place, has sent us to the holy Synod as represen- 
tatives of his person. As, therefore, Nestorius, the author of 
this new impiety, has not only allowed the term fixed by the 
Apostolic See to pass hy, but also a much longer period of 
time, the sentence upon him stands ratified by a decree of 
all the churches." (Act. iii.) 

The Council defined One Person in Jesus Christ and de- 
clared the Blessed Yirgin to be '' Mother of God," because 
she, "after the flesh, bore the Word from God who had 
become flesh; that the Word is united substantially to flesh." 

The decrees were signed by the Lep^ates, and the next 
year were confirmed by Pope Sixtus III., the successor of 
Coelestine. 

Neander, the well known Protestant historian, confesses 
that, in the affair of Nestorius, the Pope " claimed for him- 
self a supreme judiciary authority" and by "the sovereign 
•authority of the Apostolic See commissioned S. Cyril to 
depose Nestorius." (Yol. iv. p. 145, Bohn's Series). 

We may say, with greater truth, the supremacy of the 
Koman Pontiff is patent throughout. The appeal is made 
from Greeks, both Archbishops, one of Constantinople the 
other of Alexandria, to Pope Coelestine; he judges and 
prescribes the sentence of deposition to take place under 
certain circumstances; he authorizes Cyril to carry the sen- 
tence into execution. With Pope Coelestine's consent the 
General Council is convoked; he appoints its President; 
he sends thither his three Legates; his letters are read. 



54 THE pope: 

approved and complied with; each act of the Council is intro- 
duced by reference to Cyril presiding as the Vicar of the 
Pope. Coelestine's office as holder of S. Peter's authority 
is plainly stated and accepted, no one dissenting. The 
assembled Fathers state that they depose Nestorius, ''neces- 
sarily constrained thereto by the Canons and by the letter of 
our most Holy Father and fellow-minister Coelestine, Bishop of the 
Church of the Romans.'' The decrees of the Council are signed 
in the first place by the Pontiff's appointed President and 
Legates. Finally, the decrees are confirmed by the Pope. 

Could the office of Supreme Governor and Supreme 
Teacher of the Church be more plainly exercised? The 
assembled Fathers declare that Peter ' ' always lives and 
exercises judgment in his successors." (Act. iii.) In this 
they do but repeat in a new form what the Council of Aries 
had said more than a century earlier. Eome is called " the 
place in which the Apostles (Peter and Paul) continually sit 
in judgment." 

All this is done one thousand ^ye hundred and fifty years 
ago, in one of the undisputed General Councils, composed 
of Bishops nearly all from the East; some four hundred and 
fifty years before the Greeks separated from the Church; 
and but one hundred years after the first General Council of 
the Church had been held at Nice. 

4. The Council of Chalcedon, convoked in 451, bears still 
more striking evidence to the Supremacy of the Pope. 

The heresy of Eutyches broke out in the East. A Synod 
at Constantinople, presided over by its Bishop, Flavian, 
condemned and deposed Eutyches. He appealed to Pope 
Leo the Great. The Pope having examined the acts of the 
Synod confirmed the sentence passed on Eutyches . 

Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, sympathizing with 
the teaching of Eutyches, used influence at the Imperial 
Court of Constantinople to have a General Council called. 
This was done, and Pope Leo was invited to send Legates. 
Dioscorus presided. His proceedings were so uncanonical 
and outrageous that the Council bears the evil title of "the 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 55 . 

Kobber- Synod." Its decrees, though confirmed by the Em- 
peror Tlieodosius II., were rejected by Pope Leo, who also 
annulled its acts. 

The accession of Marcian to the Imperial Throne brought 
better times. Marcian, in conjunction with the Western 
Emperor Yalentinian III., summoned, with the consent of 
Pope Leo, a General Council. It met in October, 451, at 
Chalcedon. There were about six hundred Bishops present, 
the greater number of them being Easterns. 

As they themselves say in their Synodal Letter, Pope Leo 
' 'j^resided as Head over the members, in those who hold his place, " 
that is, his Legates. These were Bishops Paschasinus and 
Lucentius, together with Boniface and Basilius, priests. In 
the third session of the Council they announced that Pope 
Leo ' ' ordered them to preside over the Council in the place of 
hii)isel/.'' Paschasinus subscribes as presiding over the 
Synod in the place of "the most blessed and Apostolic Leo, 
of the city of Rome, Bishop of the Universal Church''; and 
Lucentius as " Vicar of the most blessed and Apostolic 
man, Leo, Bishop of the ivhole Church."" 

In the first session, the Legate Paschasinus declared: 
" We have instructions from the most blessed and Apostolic 
Pope of the City of Rome, the Head of all the Churches, by 
which his Apostleship has thought fit to enjoin, that Dios- 
corus, Archbishop of Alexandria, shall not sit with us, but 
be put on his defence." 

Among the charges made, Lucentius, another Legate, 
narrates that Dioscorus "dared to hold a Council without 
the authority of the Apostolic See, which had never been 
done, nor was it lawful to do." Dioscorus was found guilty 
of the charges, and was formally deposed in the third 
session. 

The sentence of deposition thus terminates: "Where- 
upon Leo, the most holy and blessed Archbishop of the 
greater and elder Rome, has, by the agency of ourselves 
(the Legates) and the present Synod, in conjunction with 
the thrice blessed and all-honored Peter, who is the Rock 
and Foundation of the Catholic Church and the Basis of the 



56 THE POP±]: 

Orthodox Faitli, deprived him (Dioscorus) of the episcopal 
dignity and every priestly function. Accordingly, this 
holy and great Synod decrees the provisions of the Canons 
against the aforesaid Dioscorus." 

Beginning with Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople, 
the assembled bishops gave their assent, "agreeing in all 
things with the Apostolic See." 

In the second session the Dogmatic Letter of Pope Leo, 
addressed to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, which 
Dioscorus would not have read in the Eobber Council, was 
communicated to the Fathers. It contains an elaborate 
statement of the doctrine of the Incarnation. In its 
entirety it was received with acclamation by the assembled 
Prelates, who on hearing it exclaimed: " This is the faith of 
the Apostles, We all believe this. The orthodox believe 
this. Anathema to him who does not believe this. Peter 
has spoken thus, by the mouth of Leo. " 

In the fourth session this letter is formally approved. 
It had been shewn by the Council to be in agreement with 
the explicit teaching of Holy Church. The Bishop's sig- 
natures were needed, not to confirm the doctrine, but to 
make a stronger barrier against the spread of the teaching 
of Eutyches. 

Against this Eutychean heresy the Council drew up a 
dogmatic formula which was adopted in the fifth session. 
And this ended what may be called the doctrinal work of 
the Synod. That of passing disciplinary canons ensued. 
By the end of the fourteenth session the Papal Legates 
and more than two-thirds of the Bishops had withdrawn 
and dispersed. 

Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople, availed himself 
of the opportunity and introduced in the next session the 
notorious 28th Canon. By it the See of Constantinople 
was to have not merely "the pre-eminence of honor" 
assigned to it by the 6th Canon of the Second General 
Council held at Constantinople, but also supreme jurisdiction 
over Pontus and Asia. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 57 

The small minority of tlie Bishops remaining passed the 
Canon. ''It claims," says Milman, the Protestant historian, 
'*' only the subscription of a hundred and fifty prelates, and 
those chiefly of the diocese of Constantinople." 

The Council by Synodal Letter, as well as the Emperor 
Marcian by private letter, ask of Pope Leo his confirmation 
of the Decrees and Canons, the latter asserting that 
** the whole authority and validity of its decrees depended 
on his sanction and confirmation." Anatolius expresses 
the same in almost similar words. The Synodal Letter 
says: " We beg of you, therefore, to honor with your sanc- 
tion our judgment; and as we have contributed our harmo- 
nious agreement with the Head in all good things, so let your 
Supremacy deal, as is becoming, with your children." 

Pope Leo, by a circular letter of March 21, 453, confirmed 
the definition of faith made by the Council. But the 28th 
Canon the Pope refused to ratify, as being in opposition to 
the Canons of the First Council of Nice. 

Writing to the Emperor Marcian, the Pope says, concern- 
ing Anatolius of Constantinople and this Canon: "Let the 
foresaid Bishop be content that through the assistance of 
your piety and by my favor he Jiolds the Episcopal See of such 
a city, which, however, he cannot make an Apostolic See.'' 
(Ep. civ.) 

And on the same question the Pope writes to the Empress 
Pulcheria: "All decrees, then, of Episcopal Councils which 
contravene the regulations contained in the Canons of Nice, 
we, seconded by your faithful piety, make void, and by the 
authority of Blessed Peter the Apostle, by one general censure, we 
invalidate them.''' (Ep. cv. 3.) 

This confirmation of the decisions and decrees of Synods 
by the Pope, as necessary before they can be binding on the 
Church, is seen in the first General Council held at Nice. 
The Bishops, in their Synodal Letter to Pope Sylvester, ask 
that their decisions may be confirmed by his agreement. 

This principle was so well known and recognized that 
Pope Nicholas L, at the time of the Photian Schism, wrote: 
*' In Universal Councils no act, as you know, is valid, or is to 



58 THE pope: 

be received, but what the See of S. Peter has approved; and, 
on the other hand, whatever she alone has rejected, that only 
is rejected." 

It is impossible for an unprejudiced mind to follow the 
dealings of Pope Leo the Great throughout the Council of 
Chalcedon without realizing the full action of his supreme 
power of " Ucumeyiical ArcJibishop and Patriarch,'' as he is 
called in the libellus of Ischyrion read in the Council. He 
rests his authority on being the successor of S. Peter, to 
whom it had been committed by Christ; the Fathers 
accept and endorse the claim and its origin. 

5. The Bishops of the Province of Tarragona in Spain 
held their Council in 460. They write to Pope Hilary: 
"Even though," say they, "no necessity of ecclesiastical 
discipline had supervened, we might indeed have had re- 
course to tJiat privilege of your See, whereby the keys, having 
been received after the Kesurrection of the Saviour, the indi- 
vidual preaching of the most blessed Peter had for its object 
the enlightening of all men throughout the whole world; 
tJie Supremacy of ivhose Vicar, as it is eminent, so is it to he 
feared and loved by all. Accordingly, we, adoring in you the 
God whom you serve blamelessly, have recourse to the Faith 
commended by the Apostle; thence seeking for answers whence 
nothing hy error, nothing hy presumption, hut all ivith Ponti- 
fical deliberation is prescribed. These things being so, there 
is, however, amongst us a false brother whose presumption, 
as it can no longer be passed over in silence, so also does 
the urgency of the future judgment compel us to speak. . . 
[They state their complaints against Silvanus, and add] : . . 
As therefore these acts of presumption, which divide unity, 
which make a schism, ought to be speedily met, we ask of 
your See that we be instructed, by your Apostolic directions, as to 
what you would have be observed in this matter. ... It 
will assuredly be your triumph, if in the time of your Apostle- 
ship the Catholic Church hears that the Chair of Peter prevails, 
if the fresh seeds of the tares be extirpated." QDited in 
Faith of Catholics, vol. ii., p. 99.) 



THE VICAE OF CHKIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 59 

6. A Council was convened at Kome by Pope Gelasius in 
the year 494. It asserts : ' ' Though all the Catholic churches- 
throughout the world be but one bridal 'chamber of 
Christ, yet tlie Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Ghurck 
has been preferred to the rest by no decrees of a Council, but 
has obtained the Primacy by the Evangelic Voice of our Lord 
and Saviour, Himself saying, ' Thou art Peter and upon 
this Eock I build my Church,'" etc. . . . Then the de- 
cree goes on to affirm: "First, therefore, is the Boman 
Church, the See of Peter the Apostle, 'not having spot or 
lorinTde or any such thing.' But, second, is the See conse- 
crated at Alexandria in the name of blessed Peter, by 
Mark, his disciple and Evangelist, who was sent by Peter 
the Apostle into Egypt, taught the word of truth and 
consummated a glorious martyrdom. And, third, is the 
See of Antioch held in honor in the name of the same 
most blessed Apostle Peter, because that he dwelt there 
before he came to Rome, and there first the name of the 
new people of the Christians arose." (Gelas. Col. 1261.) 
In their acclamations at the close of this Council the 
Bishops called Pope Gelasius "The Yicar of Christ." 

These assemblies of Bishops referred to in this section 
represent all the countries in Eastern Europe, Western Asia, 
North Africa, Italy and Spain. These Councils speak in the 
beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the fifth century. 

They recognize, publish and bow to the Supreme Author- 
ity of the Boman Pontiff over the Universal Church. They 
make no protest against the prerogatives and rights claimed 
by the Pope; on the contrary, they accept them as living 
traditions. They regard the Apostolic See as the center of 
communion of the Christian Church, and the center of the 
Orthodox Faith. They admit all these claims, not as con- 
cessions made by the Church, but as divinely instituted in 
blessed Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

ill. The Voice of the Popes in the 5th CentTiry.— 
St. Anastasius, who was Pope when the century opened, 
writes: " Care shall not be wanting on my part to guard the 



60 THE pope: 

faith of the Gospel as regards my peoples, and to visit hj 
letter as far as I am able the parts of my body throughout 
the different regions of the earth." (Ep. i. ad Joan. Hieros.) 
His successor, St. Innocent I., in like manner writes: 
* ' Who is ignorant that what was delivered to the Roman Church 
hy Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and is even now preserved, 
ought to he observed hy all; nor anything be superinduced or 
introduced which has not that authority, or which may seem 
to derive its pattern elsewhere." (Ep. ad Decentium 
XXV. n. 2.) 

2. Pope Zosimus, the next in succession, writes: ^'Although 
the tradition of the Fathers has assigned so great an authority to 
the Apostolic See, that no one should dare to dispute ahout a judg- 
ment given hy it, and that See, by Canons and regulations, has 
kept to this; and the discipline of the Church, in the laws 
which it yet follows, still pays to the name of Peter, from 
whom that See descends, the reverence due; for canonical 
antiquity, by universal consent, willed that so great a power 
should belong to that Apostle, a poiuer also derived from the 
actual promise of Christ our God, that it should be his to loose 
what was bound, and to bind what was loosed, an equal state 
of power heing hestowed upon those who, hy his will, should he 

found worthy to inherit his See, for he has hoth charge of all the 

Churches, and especially of this ivherein he sat You 

are not ignorant that We rule over his Place, and are in pos- 
session also of the Authority of his Name." (Ep. xi. ad 
Afros.) 

3. The next occupant of the Koman See, St. Boniface I., 
writes: " The institution of the Universal Church took its 
beginning from the honor bestowed on hlessed Peter, in vjhom its 
government and headship reside. For from him as its source did 
ecclesiastical discipline flow over all the Churches, when the cul- 
ture of religion had begun to make progress. The precepts 
of the Synod of Nice bear no other testimony; insomuch that 
that Synod did not attempt to make any regulations in his regard, 
as it saw that nothing could he conferred that was superior to his 



THE YICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 61 

oimi dignity; it kneiv, in fine, that everything hadheen bestowed on 
him by tlie word of the Lord. It is, therefore, certain that this 
Church is to the churches spread over the whole world as 
the head is to its own members; from which Church who so 
has cut himself off becomes an alien from the Christian 
Religion." (Ep. xiv. Epis. Thess.) 

4. Pope S. Coelestine, the next in succession, writes to the 
Bishops of Illyrium: " We in a special manner are con- 
strained by our charge, which regards all men, we, on whom 
Christ has in the ^person of holy Peter the Apostle, when he gave 
him the keys to open and to shut, imposed as a necessity to be en- 
gaged about all men." (Ep. iii.) 

5. Pope S. Xystus III., the successor of S. Coelestine, 
Avrites to John, Patriarch of Antioch, who rebelled as a 
Schismatic against Pope and Council, but afterwards re- 
turned to Catholic unity: **You have learned by the 
result of this present business what it is to agree in senti- 
ment with us. The blessed Apostle Peter, in his successors, 
has transmitted lohat he received. Who would separate him- 
self from his doctrine, whom the Master Himself declared 
to be the first among the Apostles?" (Ep. vi.) 

6. Pope S. Leo the Great succeeded as Pontiff S. Xystus. 
Leo's sermons, letters and acts, superabound in teachings of 
this kind. On the occasion of appointing the Bishop of 
Thessalonica Patriarch over the ten Metropolitans of 
Eastern Illyricum, S. Leo says: "And whereas our care is 
extended throughout all the Churches — this being required of 
us by the Lord, who committed the Primacy of the Apostolic 
dignity to the most Blessed Apostle Peter, in reward, of his faith, 
establishing the Universal Church on the solidity of him, the 
foundation — we associate in that necessary solicitude which 
we feel, those who are joined with us in the charity of (epis- 
copal) fellowship. Wherefore, following the example of 
those whose memory is venerable to us, ive have committed to 
our brother and felloio-bishop , Anastasius, to act in our stead- 



62 THE pope: 

a,nd we have enjoined him to be watchful that nothing un- 
lawful be attempted by any one; to whom that your friend- 
liness be, in things pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline, 
obedient, we admonish you. For obedience will not be so much 
rendered to him as to us, ivho are known, in our solicitude, to 
have given him this commission throughout those provinces." 
(Ep. V.) 

The authority and zeal in this letter characterize all 
Pope Leo's deeds and writings. The Protestant historian. 
Dean Milman, in his History of Latin Christianity, admits 
that '^ the Pontificate of Leo the Great is one of the epochs 
of Latin, or rather of universal Christianity. . . . On the 
throne of Rome alone, of all the greater Sees, did religion 
maintain its majesty, its sanctity, its piety; and if it de- 
manded undue deference, the world would not be rigidly 
inclined to question pretensions supported as well by such 
conscientious power as by such singular and unimpeachable 
virtue, and such inestimable benefits conferred on Rome, on 
the Empire, on civilization. . . . Supremacy, held by so 
firm and vigorous a hand as that of Leo, might seem almost 
necessary to Christendom." (Book ii. c. 4.) 

7. We have cited from the Popes who successively occu- 
pied the Chair of S. Peter in the first half of the fifth century. 
The latter half affords similar testimony from the succeed- 
ing Popes. They all speak as men " having authority." 

And lest the reader may be wearied, suffice it to quote 
the words of S. Gelasius, who sat on the Chair of Peter in 
the last decade of the fifth century : 

'' Wherefore, then," asks Pope Gelasius, ''is the Lord's 
discourse so frequently directed to Peter ? Was it that the 
rest of the holy and blessed Apostles were not clothed with 
like virtue? Who (Jare assert this? No, but that, by a 
Head being constituted, the occasion of schism might be removed; 
and that the compact bond of the Body of Christ, thus uni- 
formly tending by the fellowship of a most glorious love, to 
One Head, might be shewn to be One." . . . , 

'*For which cause our forefathers . . . referred to that 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 63 

Chair wherein the Prince of the Apostles (Peter) had sat, 
the derived origin of their priesthood, seeking thence the 
weightiest buttresses to give firmness to their own solid 
structures, that by this spectacle it may be manifest to all 
men that the Church of Christ is truly one throughout, and 
indivisible. .... 

"There were assuredly twelve Apostles, endowed with 
equal merits and equal dignity; and whereas, they all shone 
equally with spiritual light, yet was it Christ's will that one 
amongst them should be the Euler, and him, by an admira- 
ble dispensation, did He guide to Rome, the queen of 
nations, that in the principal City He might direct that first 
and principal (Apostle) Peter. And there, as he shone con- 
spicuous for power of doctrine, so also, made glorious by the 
shedding of his blood, does he repose in a place of everlast- 
ing rest, granting to the See tvhich he himself blessed, that it he, 
according to the Lord's promise, never overcome by the gates of 
hell, and that it be the safest harbor for all who are tempest- 
tossed. In that harbor whosoever shall have reposed, shall 
enjoy a blessed and eternal place of safety; whereas he that 
shall have despised it, it is for him to see to it what kind 
of excuses he will plead at the day of judgment." (Faith of 
Catholics, vol. ii. p. 101-2.) 

Again, in his epistle to the Bishops of Dardania, Pope Gela- 
sius writes: '^ The first See both confirms every Synod by its oivn 
authority, and guards by its continuous rule, by reason of its supre- 
macy, which, received by the Apostle Peter from the mouth of the 
Lord, the CJiurch nevertheless sanctioning, it both always has held 
and retains. . . . We will not pass over in silence what 
every church throughout the world knows, that the See of the 
Blessed Apostle Peter has the right to absolve from what 
has been bound by the sentence of any prelates whatsoever, 
in that it has the right of judging of the whole Church; neither 
is it lawful for any one to pass judgment on its jiidgment, seeing 
that the canons have willed that it may be appealed to from 
any part of the world, but that from it no one be permitted to 
appeal.'' (Ep. xiii.) 



64 THE pope: 

In a commentary on this letter which, appears in the Pro- 
testant Work, C Smith & "Wace's Dictionary of Christian 
Biography and Literature,") it is said: "In the address- 
of Pope Gelasius 'to the Bishops of Dardania,' he eoiarges 
on its being the function of the Roman See, not only 
to carry out the decisions of Synods, but even to give 
such decisions their whole authority. Nay, the purpose 
of Synods is spoken of as being simply to express the 
assent of the Church at large to what the Pope had 
already decreed, and what was therefore already bind- 
ing. This, he says, had been the case at Chalcedon. 
Further instances are alleged of Popes having, on their 
own mere authority, reversed the decisions of Synods, 
absolved those whom Synods had condemned, and con- 
demned those whom Synods had absolved. The cases of 
Athanasius and Chrysostom are cited as examples of the ex- 
ercise of such power. Lastly, any claim of Constantinople, 
contemptuously spoken of as in the diocese of Heraclea, to 
be exempt from the judgment of 'The First See,' is put aside 
as absurd, since ' the power of a secular kingdom is one 
thing, the distribution of ecclesiastical dignities another.' " 
(p. 619.) 

8. It is manifest from these extracts, purposely made few 
in number and selected from the writings of the Popes in the 
fifth century, that they claimed as matter of living tradition 
known to all, and asserted that they had supreme and 
universal authority in the whole Church. They rest this 
authority on divine right in the promise made by our Lord 
Jesus Christ to the* most Blessed Peter. They confirm their 
claim by constant reference to Councils and to the general 
acceptation of the Christian world. 

Neander, the Protestant ecclesiastical historian, com- 
menting on the reply of Pope Innocent to the Council of 
Carthage in 416, passes this judgment: "In the minds of 
the Roman Pontiffs we perceive the beginning already to 
develop itself more clearly arid distinctly, that to them, as 
the successors ^and representatives of the Apostle Peter,. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 65 

"belonged the sovereign guidance of the whole world. . . . 
It is impossible to doubt as to what the Popes, even as early 
as the fifth century, believed themselves to be, or would fain 
be, in relation to the rest of the Church, after having once 
listened to the language which they themselves hold on the 
subject." (Vol. iii. p. 241, Bohn's Trans.) 

This is stated even more pointedly by the well-known 
Protestant, Barrow, in his Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy. 
Referring to the cqoostolic confirmation given by Popes to 
the election of bishops and metropolitans, Barrow says: 
*'Pope Leo I. saith that Anatolius of Constantinople did 
* by favor of his assent obtain the bishoprick of Constanti- 
nople.' The same Pope is alleged as having confirmed 
Maximus of Antioch. The same did write to the Bishop of 
Thessalonica, his Yicar, that he should ' confirm the elections 
of bishops by his authority.' He also confirmed Donatus, 
an African bishop : ' We will that Donatus preside over the 
Lord's flock, upon condition that he remember to send us 
an account of his faith.' Also Gregory I. doth complain of 
it as an inordinate act, that a bishop of Salonse was ' or- 
dained without his knowledge.' Pope Damasus did confirm 
the ordination of Peter Alexandrinus : ' The Alexandrians, ' 
saith Sozomen, ' did render the churches to Peter, being 
returned to Borne with the letters of Damasus, which con- 
firmed both the Mcene decrees and his ordination.' " 
(Suppos. VI. vi.) 

Again, Barrow writes on the Appointment of Vicars Apos- 
tolic of tJie Pope: "Thus did Pope Coelestine constitute 
Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed Anatolius of Con- 
stantinople. Pope Felix, Acacius of Constantinople. 
Pope Hormisdas, Epiphanius of Constantinople. Pope 
Simplicius to Zeno of Seville: ' We thought it convenient 
you should be held up by the Vicariate authority of our 
See.' So did Siricius and his successors constitute the 
bjshops of Thessalonica to be their Vicars in the diocese of 
Illyricum, wherein, being then a member of the Western 
Empire, they had caught a special jurisdiction; to which 
Pope Leo did refer in those words, which sometimes are 



66 THE POPE : 

impertinently alleged with reference to all bishops, but con- 
cern only Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica : * We have 
intrusted thy charity to be in our stead, so that thou art 
called into part of the solicitude, not into plentitude of the 
authority.' So did Pope Zosimus bestow a like pretence of 
vicarious power upon the Bishop of Aries, which city was 
the seat of the temporal Exarch in Gaul. So to the bishop 
of Justiniana Prima, in Bulgaria (or Dardania Europoea) the 
like privilege was granted." (Suppos. YI., x.) 

And on the question of final appeal to the Pope of Rome as 
successor to S. Peter and the Head of the Church, which the 
Council of Sardica had formally acknowledged in its decrees, 
A. D. 343, Barrow gives the following instances: ''Thus 
did Marcian go to Rome and sue for admission to com- 
munion there. So Fortunatus and Felicissimus in S. Cyprian, 
being condemned in Afric, did fly to Bome for shelter; of 
which absurdity S. Cyprian doth so complain. So likewise 
Martianus and Basilidis, in S. Cyprian, being outed of their 
Sees for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly 
to Stephen (the Pope) for succor to be restored. Maximus, 
the Cynic, went to Bome to get a confirmation of his election 
at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being rejected for hetero- 
doxy, went thither to get attention for his orthodoxy, of 
which S. Basil complaineth. So Aparius, being condemned 
in Afric for his crimes, did appeal to Bome. And on the 
the other side, Athanasius being with great partiality con- 
demned by the Synod of Tyre; Paulus and other Bishops 
being extruded from their Sees for orthodoxy; S. Chrysos- 
tom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his 
accomplices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus and 
the Ephesine Synod; Theoderet, being condemned by the 
same : did cry out for help to Bome. Chelidonius, Bishop of 
Besanon, being deposed by Hilarius of Aries for crimes, 
did fly to Pope Leo. Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
being extruded from his See by Photius, did complain to the 
Pope." (Suppos. Y. X.) 

On the point of appeals to Bome, the Protestant Dean 
Miiman avows that the two Canons of Sardica do establish 



THE YICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 67 

* ' a general right of appeal from all parts of Christendom to 
Borne.''' (Hist, of Lat. Christ. Bk. ii. c. 4.) But appeals 
are made to superior authority; and bjthe early laws of the 
Church there was no appeal from one Patriarchate to an- 
other; therefore the appeal to Rome was to the Supreme 
Source of Authority. 

Barrow, Neander^ Milman, as historians, cannnot conceal 
the undeniable fact of the exercise of universal power by 
the Popes over the Church as early as the fourth and fifth 
centuries. But instead of realizing that this was but nat- 
ural, as soon as the Church was freed from persecution, and 
could follow the law of growth by developing her Apostolate 
divinely instituted in Peter, and her Corporate Episcopate 
divinely histituted in the College of Apostles, these Protes- 
tant eminent writers do but see usurpation on the part of the 
Popes. 

The exercise of the Papal Supremacy at this earlv period 
is admitted not only by Church writers like those cited, but* 
also by secular historians like Hallam. Let the judicious 
reader see whether the Divine Institution of the Papacv is 
not the only solid and true explanation of these facts. 

iv. Testimony from the G-reek Schism.— To the histori- 
cal evidence for the recognized divine institution of the 
Supremacy of the Pope in the fifth century it is well to add 
the doctrinal definition gradually evolved by the develop- 
ment of the Greek schism. 

It is not usual for General Councils to make definitions of 
faith, unless some doctrine has been assailed, misrepresented 
or denied. Now, as a matter of fact, for the first nine centu- 
ries no heretic made a direct attack upon the doctrine of 
Papal Supremacy. There was therefore no need of defini- 
tion. But when the Photian schism in the middle of the 
ninth century begot a denial of the Visible Headship of the 
Church, she, in her Eighth General Council, in 869, exacted 
a Declaration of Faith on this point. And this led later to 
formal definitions concerning the Supremacy of the Pope. 



68 THE pope: 

1. At Epliesus and at Chalcedon we have seen how the 
assembled Bishops treated the successor of S. Peter in the 
Chair of Eome as the * ' Universal Bishop of the whole 
Church." 

The definitions made by these Councils against Nestorian- 
ism and Eutychianism did not unfortunately crush these 
heresies. They formed two sects which rapidly spread in 
the East. Early in the sixth century there seemed to 
be hope of reconciling one of the Sects, (the Eutychians, 
otherwise called Monophysites,) and of healing the Acacian 
schism lately formed. 

To bring about submission and reconciliation, an appeal 
was made A. D. 516 to Pope Hormisdas by the clergy of the 
East. They address their letter ' ' To the most holy and 
blessed Patriarch of the whole earth, Hormisdas, holding 
the See of Peter, Prince of the Apostles.'' And in their com- 
munication they say : ' ' Since Christ our God has appoirited 
"gou Chief Pastor, and Teacher, and Physician of soids, we 
beseech you, therefore, most Blessed Father, to arise and 
condole with the Body torn to pieces, for you are the Head 
of all, and avenge the Faith despised, the Canons trodden 
under foot, the Fathers blasphemed. The Flock itself comes 
forward to recognize its own Shepherd in you, its true Pastor 
and Doctor, to whom the care of the Sheep is intrusted for 
their Salvation." (Labbe, Tom. Y. p. 598; Mansi, Tom. viii» 
p. 424.) 

In consequence. Pope Hormisdas sent a deputation to Con- 
stantinople bearing a Profession of Faith, with a promise of 
allegiance. This is known as " The Formula of Pope 
Hormisdas." 

Therein it is declared: ''Wherefore the sentence of our 
Lord Jesus Christ cannot be set aside, in which He says : 
* Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build- My 
Church,' etc. The above words are confirmed in their re- 
sults, /or in the Apostolic See religion has alivays been preserved 
without spot. Anxious, therefore, not to be severed from 
this hope and faith, and following in all things the constitu- 
tutions of the Fathers, we anathematize all heretics 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 69 

We receive and approve all the encyclical letters of Pope 
Leo which he wrote concerning the Christian religion. 
Whence, as we have said before, following in all things the 
Apostolic See, and prof essing all its decrees, we hope that we may 
deserve to he in the one communion tvith you which the Apostolic 
Bee proclaims, in which is the entire and trus solidity of the 
Christian Religion. We promise, also, that the names of 
those luho are cut off from the Communion of the CathoUc 
Church, that is, not consentient with tlve Apostolic See, shall 
not be recited during the Sacred Mysteries." 

This profession of faith was signed in 519 by the 
Emperor, by the Patriarchs, by the Bishops, who returned 
to Catholic unity. Therein it is cleairly asserted that 
the Supreme authority of the Eoman Pontiff rests on the 
promise of Christ, that it is incumbent upon every Chris- 
tian to be united with the Apostolic See, and that all who 
are not in communion with the Roman Church are cut off 
from the Communion of the Catholic Church. 

This was the Faith embedded in the mind and acts of the 
United East and West. 

2. When the Imperial seat of Government was trans- 
ferred to Constantinople this city was a simple bishopric. 
But with its new honors it grew ambitious and aspired to be 
a, Patriarchate, as is shown by the 6th Canon of the Second 
General Council in 381. Seventy years later, at the 
Council of Ephesus, Anatolius of Constantinople, with some 
one hundred and fifty Bishops, a fourth part of the assembled 
Fathers, drew up and subscribed the 28th Canon, giving to 
Constantinople authority over the Patriarchates of Alexan- 
dria, Antioch and Jerusalem. By the end of the sixth cen- 
tury, beginning with John the Faster, the Patriarch of 
Constantinople assumed the title of "Ecumenical, or Uni- 
versal Bishop." A century later, the Canons enacted by 
the Synod in Trullo, held at Constantinople, clearly manifest 
enmity against Rome and covertly insinuate the indepen- 
dence of the East, m matters of discipline. 

The Roman Pontiffs, instinct with faith, foresaw in these 
ambitious attempts the elements of schism, and accordingly 



70 THE pope: 

resisted them. The 6th Canon of Constantinople, assigning 
pre-eminence of honor to Constantinople after Eome, was 
ignored by the Popes until 1215, when the Latin Patriarch- 
ate was established at Constantinople. Then the Fourth 
Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., accorded the privi- 
lege. And as to the 28th Canon of Chalcedon, neither 
Pope Leo nor any of his successors ever confirmed it. 

The pride and ambition of the Bishops of Constantinople, 
inflamed by the Imperial Court, at length produced their 
fruits, and brought matters to a heading in the year 858. 

Photius, a man of much learning but of unscrupulous 
character, was then uncanonically consecrated Bishop and 
usurped the See of Constantinople, from which its lawful 
Bishop, Ignatius, had been exiled by the Imperial Court for 
resisting the conduct of some of its members. 

The Emperor Michael sought the approbation of Pope 
Nicholas I. for Photius. This the Pope not only refused, 
but he also condemned the treatment of Bishop Ignatius, . 
and the usurpation of Photius. In the same year the Pope 
passed sentence of deposition and degradation from the 
clerical rank on Photius. 

The latter contumaciously retained the See, convoked a 
Synod in the Imperial City, and pronounced sentence of de- 
position and excommunication on the Pope. Later, Photius 
published an Encyclical containing a long list of charges 
against the Western Church. 

Shortly afterwards, Photius was ejected by the new Em- 
peror Basil, Ignatius was restored to his See, and Pope 
Hadrian II., who had succeeded Nicholas, labored with zeal 
to heal the schism. 

The Eighth General Council was convoked for this pur- 
pose at Constantinople in 869. The excommunication of 
Photius by the Pope was recognized. 

Each of the Bishops, before taking his seat in the Coun- 
cil, signed the Formula of Hormisdas, given above; and thus 
were East and West united in the profession of belief con- 
cerning the supremacy and universal authority of the Boman 
Tontiff. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 71 

The schism was for the moment healed. It unfortu- 
nately broke out again and again; and it was finally con- 
summated by Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, in 1052. Several efforts have since been made to 
heal the rent, but without lasting success. 

3. Two of these efforts culminated in convoking two 
General Councils, the one at Lyons in 1274, the other at 
Florence in 1439, by Pope Gregory X. and by PopeEugenius 
IV., respectively. 

The Formula of Faith subscribed by the Latin and Greek 
Bishops and by the Greek Emperor, Michael Palseologus, at 
the Council of Lyons, contained these words: ^^The Holy 
Roman Cliurcli holds supreme and full primacy and headship 
over the whole Catholic Church, which she truly and humbly 
acknowledges herself to have received from the Lord Himself, 
in the person of Blessed Peter, the Prince and Head of the 
Apostles, whose successor is the Roman Pontiff, with the 
plenitude of power. And as before all others she is bound to 
defend the truth, so also if any questions arise concerning the 
faith, they ought by her judgment to be defined. . . . By 
mouth and heart we confess that which the sacred and holy 
Roman Church truly holds, and faithfully teaches and 
preaches." 

At the Council of Florence the assembled Fathers, both 
Greek and Latin, defined " That the Holy Apostolic See and 
the Roman Bishop hold the Primacy over all the ivorld; that 
the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Blessed Peter, the 
Prince of the Apostles, the true Yicar of Christ, the Head 
of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all 
Christians; and that to him, in the person of Blessed Peter 
luas committed by our Lord Jesus Christ tlie fidl poioer of feed- 
ing , directing and governing tlie Universal Church, as also is 
contained in the Acts of QEcumenical Councils and in the 
sacred Canons." 

Though the union created by the Council of Lyons lasted 
hardly six years, and that effected by the Council of Florence 
not more than four years, yet the Formula of Hormisdas, 



72 THE pope: 

signed, it is said, in all, by some 2,500 Bishops, tlie Formula 
of Faith, signed at the Council of Lyons, and the dogmatic 
definition formulated and promulgated by the united Greek 
and Latin Fathers assembled in General Council at Florence 
under the presidency of Eugene IV., will ever remain as the 
explicit declarations of the adhesion of East and West to the 
divinely appointed Supremacy of the Eoman Pontiff, as 
successor of S. Peter, over the whole Church of God. 

4. The Vatican Council of 1870, in its Dogmatic Constitu- 
tion on the Church of Christ, defines : (1) "That Blessed Peter 
the Apostle was appointed the Prince of the Apostles, the 
Visible Head of the whole Church Militant, and that he re- 
ceived directly and immediately from our Lord Jesus Christ a 
primacy, not only of honor, but also of true and proper 
jurisdiction. (2) That it is by the institution of Christ the 
Lord, or by divine right, that Blessed Peter should have a 
perpetual line of successors in the Primacy over the Uni- 
versal Church, and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor 
of Blessed Peter in this primacy. (3) That the Eoman 
Pontiff has the office, not merely of inspection, but full and 
supreme jurisdiction over the Universal Church, not only in 
things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those 
which relate to the discipline and government of the Church 
spread throughout the world; that he possesses not the prin- 
cipal part, but the fulness of this supreme power; that this 
power is ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the 
Churches, and over each and all the Pastors and the faith- 
ful. (4) That the Eoman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathe- 
dra, that is, when, in discharge of his supreme office of Pastor 
and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme 
Apostolic Authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or 
morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine 
assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of 
that infallibility with which the divine Eedeemer willed that 
His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regard- 
ing faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of 
the Eoman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not 
from the consent of the Church." 



THE VICAE OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 73 

5. To sum up the " Witness of History to the Papacy; " 
it is patent, first, that as early as the fifth century the 
Supremacy of the Pope, as Governor and Teacher of the 
Universal Church, for unity of faith and of communion, was 
taught by the Bishops and ecclesiastical writers; was claimed 
and acted on by the Popes; was accepted in its fulness by 
General and Provincial Councils; and was appealed to as 
final in its decisions by pastors and people from every part 
of the Church. 

Secondly, that such Supreme Authority in government 
and in teaching over the whole Church was held to be, 
not by concession of the Church nor by usurpation on 
the part of the Popes, but by Divine right, having been 
instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ in the person of Blessed 
Peter; and that it was perpetuated in the Eoman Pontiff, 
the successor of S. Peter in the Apostolic See of Eome. 

Thirdly, the Greek schism caused a dogmatic definition of 
the Supremacy of the Pope by the assembled Episcopate of 
the whole Church at Florence, which confirmed and more ex- 
plicitly stated the doctrines enunciated in the *' Formula of 
Hormisdas"; and in the Profession of Faith accepted and 
signed at the Synod of Lyons. 

Fourthly, the Vatican Council re-affirms the definition of 
Florence, and states more explicitly the nature of the Uni- 
versal Jurisdiction of the Pope and the Unerring Character 
of his office as Universal Doctor or Teacher. 

It needs but ordinary observation to see that no funda- 
mental change is made in the declarations of Pope Hormis- 
das in 519, of the Council of Lyons in 1274, of the Council 
of Florence in 1439, of the Council of the Vatican in 1870. 
More definiteness alone is given to the definitions of the 
rights and prerogatives of the Sovereign Pontiff. 

It cannot be other than a special providence, that the tes- 
timony adduced from the fifth century comes not only from 
the " Undivided Church'' but also in greater part from the 
Greek or Eastern Bishops assembled in General Councils. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THFi PAPACY A DOCTRINAL TEST. 

i. The Arm of Unity— While the Apostles were yet 
living there were turbulent, unruly spirits that revolted 
against the authority and the teaching of these pastors, and 
thus produced schisms and heresies. The first centuries of 
the Church's existence witnessed the formation of severa-^ 
sects, each holding some of the Gospel truth, and therefore 
claiming to call themselves Christians. But they possessed 
neither divine authority to teach, nor had they the faith 
once delivered to the Saints. 

Against these the Church made war; her teachers were 
ever proclaiming the organic and therefore inseparable 
unity of the Church and of her Teaching. 

1. S. Irenaeus, writing before the end of the second cen- 
tury, thus speaks in his great work "Against Heresies:" 
"The Church, though spread over the whole world, to the 
earth's boundaries, having received both from the Apostles 
and their disciples the faith ; . . . . having, as I have said 
received that preaching and this faith, the Church, though 
spread over the whole world, guards it sedulously as though 
dwelling in one house; and these truths she uniformly 
holds, as having hwi one soul, and one and the same heart; 
and these she proclaims and teaches, and hands down, 
uniformly, as though she had but one mouth. For though 
throughout the world the languages are various, still the 
force of the tradition is one and the same. And neither 
do the churches founded in Germany, nor those in Spain, 
in Gaul, in the East, in Egypt, in Africa, nor in the re- 
gions in the middle of the earth, believe or deliver a dif- 
ferent faith; but as God's handiwork, the sun, is one and 
the same throughout the universe, so the preaching of the 
truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that wish 
to come to the knowledge of the truth." (Adv. Hseres., 
Book i. c. 10.) 

(74) 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 75 

2. S. Cyprian, struggling against the Novatians, writes, in 
the middle of the third century: "The Lordsaith ' I and the 
Father are one '; and again, of the Father, the Son and the 
Holy Ghost, it is written: 'and these three are one'; and 
does any think tliat oneness, thus proceeding from the divine 
immutability, and cohering in heavenly sacraments, admits of 
being sundered in the Church, and split by the divorce of an- 
tagonist wills ? He who holds not this unity holds not the law 
of God, holds not the faith of Father and Son, holds not the 
truth unto salvation. This sacrament of unity, this bond of 
concord inseparably cohering, is signified in the place in the 
Gospel where the coat of Our Lord Jesus Christ is in no 
wise parted nor cut." (S. Cyprian, De Un. Ecc. 5, 6.) 

In the same treatise the Saint continues: " There is one 
God and one Christ, and His Church one, and the Faith one, 
and a people joined in solid oneness of body by a cementing con- 
cord. Unity cannot be sundered, nor can one body be divided 
by a dissolution of its structure, nor be cast piecemeal abroad 
with vitals torn and lacerated." (De Un. Ecc. n. 19.) 

3. S. Augustine, in the early part of the fifth century, fol- 
lows the same plan when opposing the Donatists. He argues : 
"The question between us undoubtedly is, where is the 
Church ? Whether with us or with the Donatists ? That 
Church assuredly is one, lohich our ancestors called the Catholic ^ 
that they might show, by the name itself, that it is through- 
out the whole. . . . But this Church is the Body of Christ, 
as the Apostle says, 'for His Body which is the Church.' 
Whence assuredly it is manifest that he who is not in the 
members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation. Now, 
the members of Christ are united to each other by the charity 
of unity J and, by the same, coliere to their own Head, which is 
Christ Jesus." (De Unit. Ecc. n. 2.) 

Here are three instances of three great champions fighting 
for the Faith and for the Church in the earliest ages. Each 
insists on the inseparable, essential and indestructible 
unity of the Kingdom of Christ. 



76 THE POPE: 

ii. The Arm of the Apostolate .— To have an easy visi- 
ble evidence of being in the One True Church, each of these 
great champions insists on communion with the Roman 
Church, the See of Peter as the Center of Unity. 

1. S. Irenaeus deemed it sufficient to appeal to the tradi- 
tion of the Roman Church for confounding all heretics. He 
says: ^' But as it must take up too much time in such a 
volume as this to enumerate the successions of all the 
Churches, by pointing out that tradition, which the greatest 
and most ancient and most universally known Church of 
E/Ome, founded and constituted by the two most glorious 
Apostles, Peter and Paul, holds from the Apostles, and the 
faith announced to all men, which, through the successions 
of her Bishops, has come down to us, we confound all those 
who in any way, whether through pleasing themselves, or 
vain-glory, or blindness, or perverse opinion, assemble 
otherwise than behooveth them. For to this Church, on ac- 
count of a more powerful principality, it is necessary that every 
Church, that is, the faithful everywhere, should he in communion 
(or should agree, 'convenire'), in which (Church) ever, by 
those who are on every side, has been preserved that tra- 
dition which is from the Apostles.'' Then having given 
the succession of the Popes down to his own day, Ire- 
naeus concludes: "By this same order, and by this same 
succession, both that tradition which is in the Church from 
the Apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down 
to us. And this is a most full demonstration that it is one 
and the same life-giving faith which is preserved in the 
Church from the Apostles and handed down in truth." (Adv. 
Haer. Lib. iii. c. 3.) 

In the most unflinching way, S. Irenaeus, in this passage, 
says that every Church has to agree with the Roman Church. 
So, then, Jerusalem, and Antioch, and Alexandria, though 
they could claim Apostolic origin, must of necessity, accord- 
ing to this Apostolic Father, conform or be in agreement 
with the Roman Church. And the reason assigned is her 
^'pre-eminent authority,'^ as given in Clark's Ante-Nicene 



THE VICAR OP CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 77 

Library, (or, "her more powerful headship;" or, "her more 
powerful supremacy;" or, "her more powerful, absolute 
sway;" as other modern critics have rendered ^^ propter 
potentiorem principalitatem . ") 

2. S. Cyprian writes to the Lapsed, saying: " Our Lord, 
whose precepts and warnings we ought to observe, determin- 
ing the honor of a Bishop and the ordering of His own 
Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter : ' I say 
unto thee, thou art Peter, etc' Ihence the ordination of 
Bishops and the ordering of the Church runs doiun along the 
course of time and line of succession, so that the Church is 
settled upon her Bishops, and every act of the Church is 
regulated by these same prelates." (Ep. xxxiii. 3.) 

Again : ' ' There is but one Baptism and one Holy Ghost, 
and one Church, founded hy Christ the Lord upon Peter, 
through an original and principle of unity.''' (Ep. Ixx. 5.) 

He writes to Antonianus concerning his reconciliation: 
' ' I received your first letter, dearest brother, firmly uphold- 
ing the concord of the Sacerdotal College and cleaving to the 
Catholic Church, loherein you did not communicate with Nova- 
tian, hut folloived my advice and agreed with Cornelius, our 
brother Bishop, to hold one uniform course. You wrote also 
that I should transmit a copy of the same letter to our col- 
league, Cornelius, that so laying aside all anxiety, he might 
know that you held communion ivith him, that is, luith the 
Catholic Church.'' (Ep. Iv. i.) 

And to Pope Cornelius: " After all this, they yet, in addi- 
tion, having had a pseudo-Bishop ordained for them by 
heretics, dare to set sail and carry letters from schismatic 
and profane persons to the Chair of Peter, and to the principal 
Church, luhence tlie Unity of the Priesthood took its rise, remem- 
bering not that they are the same Romans whose faith has 
been commended by the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can 
have no access." (Ep. lix., n. 18.) 

3. S. Augustine, in the early part of the fifth century, pur- 
sues the same line. Against the Manichean heresy he 
writes: " Not to mention, therefore, this wisdom which you 



78 ' THE pope: 

Manicliees do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, many 
other reasons there are which most justly keep me in her 
bosom. The agreement of peoples and nations keeps me; 
an authority begun with miracles, nourished with hope, 
increased with charity, strengthened by antiquity, keeps me; 
the succession of priests from the Chair itself of the Apostle 
Peter — unto whom the Lord after his resurrection committed 
His sheep to he fed — down even to the present Bishop ^ keeps me; 
finally, the name itself of the Catholic Church, keeps me — 
a name which, in the midst of so many heresies, this Church 
alone has not without cause so held possession of, as that, 
though all heretics would fain have themselves called 
^Catholics,' yet to the enquiry of any stranger 'where is 
the meeting of the Catholic Church held ? ' no heretic would 
dare point out his own basilica or house." (Cont. Ep. 
Fund. Man). 

The same Augustine, burning with the desire to convert 
the Donatists, taught his flock to sing: '' Come brethren, if 
you wish to be engrafted in the Vine, we grieve to see you 
lie thus cut off from it. Number your Bishops from the very 
Chair of Peter, and in that list of Fathers trace the succession. 
This is the Bock against which the proud gates of hell do 
not prevail." (Psalm c. Donat. ix. 7.) 

With these Donatists, S. Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, 
argued, about 375, in these words: ''Thou canst not then 
deny but thou knowest that in the City of Rome, on Peter, the 
first, was the Episcopal Chair conferred, wherein might sit 
Peter, the Head of all the Apostles; whence also he was 
called Cephas, that in that one Chair unity might he preserved 
hy all; nor the other Apostles each contend for a distinct Chair 
for himself, and that lohosoever should set up another Chair 
against the Single Chair, might at once he condemned as a schis- 
matic and a sinner. Therefore in that One Chair, which is the 
first of the prerogatives, sat Peter first. To him succeeded 
Linus, etc. etc., down to Siricius, who is at this day associated 
with us with whom the whole world is concordant, with us in the 
one hond of communion by the intercourse of letters of peace. 
Tou who wish to claim to yourselves the holy Church, tell 



■■■ 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 79 

US the origin of your Chair." (De Schism. Donat. lib. ii. 
n. 24.) 

The Protestant historian, Neander, frankly admits that S. 
Optatus *' represents the Apostle Peter as the Head of the 
Apostles, as the representative of the Unity of the Church 
and of the Apostolic power, who had received the Keys of 
the Kingdom for the purpose of giving them to the others. 
. . . In the Roman Church he perceives the indestructi- 
ble Cathedra Petri. This stood in the same relation to the 
other Episcopal Churches as the Apostle Peter stood to the 
rest of the Apostles. The Roman Church represents the 
one Visible Church, the one Episcopate. There was one 
Apostolic power in Peter, from which the Apostolic power 
of the others issued forth, as it were, like so many different 
streams; and in like manner there is one Episcopal power in 
the Roman Church, from which the other Episcopal powers 
are but so many streams." (Hist, of Church, Bohn's Trans., 
vol. iii. p. 236.) 

Neander might have added S. Ambrose and the Council 
of Acquileia, held in 381, expressly describe the Roman 
Church as "The Head of the whole Roman world. . . . 
Whence floiu uyito all the rights of venerable communion. ^^ 
(Ep. xi. n. 4). 

4. It is plain from the above that these illustrious Bishops, 
in the earliest centuries of the Church's history, regarded 
communion with the Bishop of Rome as an essential condi- 
tion for being in the Church of Christ and for holding the 
True Faith. This was the test of Orthodoxy. It served 
also as a beacon in storms, as the following show: 

5. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who died in 397, was the 
spiritual teacher of S. Augustine. The Bishop argues on 
the text: " This is Peter, to whom He said, 'Thou art Peter, 
and upon this Rock will I build my Church.' Therefore^ 
where Peter is^ there is the Church; where the Church is, there 
is no death, but eternal life.' " (In Psal. xl. Ennar.) 

This same Ambrose tells us that when his brother Satyrus 
was shipwrecked and was cast on a shore inhabited by a 



80 THE pope: 

people about whose orthodoxy he was doubtful, Satyru& 
'* called the Bishop to him, and not accounting any grace 
true which was not of the True Faith, enquired whether the 
Bishop agreed with the Catholic Bishops, that is, with the Bo- 
man Church.'' (De Excessu Frat. n. 46.) 

In like manner, S. Jerome, cotemporary with S. Am- 
brose, just mentioned, was living in the Holy Land. 
Schisms were prevailing at Antioch. Being in doubt with 
which of the disputing Bishops he ought to remain in com- 
munion, S. Jerome writes (A. D. 376) to Pope Damasus a 
letter, wherein he says: " Since the East tears in pieces the 
Lord's coat, and foxes lay waste the Vineyard of Christ, sa 
that among broken cisterns, which hold no water, it is diffi- 
cult to understand where is the sealed fountain and the en- 
closed garden ; therefore have I thought that I should consult 
the Chair of Beter, and the faith praised by the Apostle, 
thence now soliciting food for my soul. . . . Although your 
greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness invites me. . . . 
I speak with the Successor of the Fisherman, with the Disciple of 
the Cross. I, following no leader hut Christ, am united with 
your Blessedness, that is, with the Chair of Beter. On the 
Bock I know that the Church is built. Whoever eats the 
Lamb out of this house is profane. Whoever may not be in 
the Ark of Noe will perish in the deluge. ... I know 
not Vitalis; Melitus I reject; I am ignorant of Paulinus^ 
Whosoever gathereth not with thee, scatter eth; that is, he who 
is not of Christ is of anti-Christ." (Ad Dam. Ep. xv.) 

ill. The Arm of Indefectible Doctrine.— The Fathers we 
have cited lay, as their words shew, great stress on Unity of 
Faith. They point to the ilpostolic See of Eome as the 
center of such unity. Peter, who first sat therein, "even 
till this present, and always, both lives and judges in his suc- 
cessors." In the '' Apostolic See religion has always been 
preserved without spot." Therein is ''the solidity of the 
Christian religion." 

So evident is ''this purity of faith" io the See of Peter 
that the famed Anglican, Palmer, writes: " We find that the 



THE VIOAE OF CHEIST; THE HEAD OP THE CHURCH. 81 

Eoman Church was zealous to maintain the true faith from 
the earliest period, condemning and expelling the Gnostics, 
Artemonites, etc. And during the Arian mania it was the 
bulwark of the Catholic Faith." (The Church, p. vii., c. iii.) 
This is a wondrous avowal from a member of the Episco- 
palian Church of England. A predecessor of his. Bishop 
Bull, cites, with approbation from Eufinus, who says: "In 
the Church of the City of Rome, however, we do not find 
that this has been done (namely, adding words to the Creed, 
as other churches had) ; the reason of which I conceive is 
this, that that no heresy ever had its origin there.'"' 

But let lis hear some of the Fathers speak of Eome: "In 
which Church ever has been preserved that tradition which 
is from the Apostles;" so writes S. Irenaeus of the Roman 
Church. And S. Cyprian says of certain schismatical and 
profane men who ventured to set sail for the See of Peter, 
that they did not reflect that the "faith of the Romans is 
extolled by the Apostle, to whom false faith can have no 
access." We have already heard S. Augustine: "Con- 
cerning this matter, two councils were sent to the Apostolic 
See, whence the rescripts have come; the cause is finished." 
Leo the Great says of his predecessors: they were men "who 
for so many ages have been preserved by the teaching of the 
Holy Spirit from any inroad of heresy." (Serm. II. in die 
Assump. suse.) Elsewhere the same Leo writes: "The 
solidity of that faitJi which is perpetual; and as that which 
Peter believed in Christ abides for ever, so does that for 
ever abide which Christ instituted in Peter." The same 
thought made Chrysostom call Peter the "Rock of Faith." 

In the Formula of Hormisdas, already given, is it said 
that '■ ' in the Apostolic See is the perfect and true solidity 
of the Christian religion;" and again, "these words ' Thou 
arb Peter, etc.,' are proved by their effects, for in the 
Apostolic See the Catholic religion has ever been preserved 
immaculate, and the faith taught without stain." Let it be 
remembered, that in the Eighth General Council of the 
Church this Formula was signed by all the Fathers. 



THE pope: 

Pope Agatho, in his letter to Constantine IV., accepted by 
the Sixth General Council, says: "This is the rule of true 
faith which this Apostolic Church of Christ, the Spiritual 
Mother of your most peaceful empire, holds and defends 
both in prosperity and adversity, which Church by the grace 
of Almighty God will never be shown to have strayed at any 
time from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor to have yielded 
ever to the perverse novelties of heretics; but what in the 
beginning she received from her founders, the chief of the 
Apostles of Christ, she retains unsullied to the end, accord- 
ing to the divine promise of our Lord and Saviour Himself, 
which in the Gospel He gave to the Prince of His Apostles : 
'Peter, Peter, behold Satan hath desired to have you,' etc. . 
... it is well known to all, that the Apostolic Pontiffs, my 
predecessors, have always fearlessly done." 

This clear statement of the unerring faith of the Apostolic 
See, and of its infallible voice, is unreservedly accepted by 
ihe Fathers in Council. For their letter says: God hath 
given us a wise physician, even your Holiness "who firmly 
repelled the contagious plague of heresy by the antidotes of 
orthodoxy; and impartest the strength of health to the 
members of the Church. To thee, therefore, as the First 
See of the Universal Church, standing upon the firm Rock, 
we leave what is to be done, having read the letter of a true 
confession sent by your paternal Blessedness to our most 
religious Emperor, which we recognize as divinely written 
from the Supreme Head of the Apostles." (Mansi xi. §^ 
239, 683.) 

This Council was assembled at Constantinople in 680, and 
was in great part composed of Eastern Bishops. They 
made Pope Agatho's letter to the Emperor their own, and 
received it with the acclamation: "Peter hath spoken by 
Agatho." 

The declaration of Infallibility by the Pope and its recep- 
tion by the Council are the more remarkable, as in this very 
Council Pope Honorius is numbered among sundry heretics 
and is anathematized. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 83 

But, let it be borne iu mind, he was not condemned for 
heresy. This is expressly said by Pope Leo II., who con- 
firmed the decrees and therefore gave them their binding 
force. Here are his words: "We anathematize Honorius, 
who did not strive with energy to maintain the purity of 
this Apostolic Church by the teaching of the Apostles, but 
who permitted that this Church without spot should become 
stained by profane treason." Honorius had given no defini- 
tion of faith — indeed he declined to do so, as the words of his 
own letter show. It was an error of judgment on his part, 
into which he had been led by the cunning of Bishop Ser- 
gius. Not only do the letters of Honorius shew there was 
no definition of faith, but also that they were of a private 
nature and written in the interests of peace. Leo II., just 
referred to, writes to the Bishops of Spain on the occasion 
of confirming the decrees: "Honorius, who failing in the 
duty of his Apostolical Authority, instead of extinguishing 
the flame of heresy, fomented it by neglect.'' 

It will be noticed that in the very passage of Pope Leo 11. 
condemning Honorius, the Boman Church is described as 
" without spot'' — " the immaculate," and "without stain" of 
the Formula of Hormisdas. 

Apart from this testimony of such great writers it might 
logically be argued, the supreme authority to govern 
implies the supreme power to judge and teach in matters of 
doctrine. And so these Fathers would naturally pass from 
union with Bome for being in the True Church to union 
with Borne for holding the True Faith. 

The prince of Catholic theologians, S. Thomas Aquinas, 
expresses this in a few short sentences: "For the unity of 
the Church, it is necessary that all the faithful agree in 
faith. But concerning points of faith, it happens that ques- 
tions are raised by which the Church would be divided by a 
diversity of opinions, unless it were preserved in unity by 
the sentence of one. So, then, it is demanded for the 
preservation of the Church's unity that there be one to 
preside over the whole Church. Now it is plain that Christ 
is not wanting in necessary things to the Church which He 



84 THE pope: 

loved, and for whicli He shed His blood, since even of the 
Synagogue it is said by the Lord, ' what more ought I to 
have done for my vineyard, which I have not done.' We 
cannot therefore doubt that one, by the ordering of Christ, 
presides over the whole Church." (Contra Gent. lib. iv.) 

2. Holding this doctrine, and having in mind the universal 
tradition of the Church from its earliest ' days, it is no 
wonder that when Bishop Fisher of Rochester, in England, 
was called upon in 1535 by Henry YIII. to renounce the 
Supremacy of the Pope and acknowledge the supremacy of 
the King, the Bishop preferred martyrdom to such a pro- 
cedure. His words, spoken in Convocation on that occasion, 
should be engraven on the heart. "We cannot," said he, 
' ' grant this unto the King, but we must renounce our unity 
with the See of Home. And if there were no further matter 
in it than a renouncing of Clement YII., Pope thereof, then 
the matter were not so great; but in this we do forsake the 
first /ou7' General Councils, which none ever forsook; 
we renounce all canonical and ecclesiastical laws of the 
Church of Christ; we renounce all other Christian princes; 
we renounce the unity of the Christian world, and so leap 
out of Peter's ship to be drowned in the wave of all heresies, 
sects, schisms and divisions; for the First and General 
Council of Nice acknowledged Silvester, the Bishop of 
Borne, his authority to be over them by sending their de- 
crees to be ratified by him. The Council of Constanti- 
nople did acknowledge Pope Damasus to be their chief by 
admitting him to give sentence against the heretics, Mace- 
donius, Sabellius, and Eunomius. The Council of Eph- 
esus acknowledged Pope Coelestine to be their Chief Judge 
by admitting his condemnation upon the heretic Nestorins. 
The Council of Chalcedon acknowledged Pope Leo to be 
their Chief Head, and all General Councils of the world ever 
acknowledged the Pope of Bome only to be the Supreme 
Head of the Church; and now, shall we acknowledge 
another Head, or one Head to be in England and another 
in Bome?" 



THE VIOAE OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OP THE CHURCH. 85 

This saintly, heroic Bishop, who died a martyr for the Su- 
premacy of the Pope, did but witness to the indefectible 
tradition of the Church planted by St. Augustine in England. 

Yenerable Bede, A.D. 700, speaking of Pope S. Gregory the 
Great, who commissioned S. Augustine to preach in England, 
writes: "We may and rightly ought to call him our 
Apostle; because, whereas he hore the pontifical power over all 
the Churches already reduced to the faith of truth, he made 
our nation, till then given up to idols, the Church of Christ." 
(Book ii. c. 1.) 

St. Aldhelm, who died in 709, Bishop of Sherburn, in Eng- 
land, thus writes of the Chair of Peter: "To conclude 
everything in the casket of one short sentence. In vain of 
tlie Catholic faith do they vainly boast loho follow not the teach- 
ing aiid rule of St. Peter. For the foundation of the Church 
and ground of the faith, primarily in Christ and then in Peter, 
unrocked by the stress of tempests, shall not waver, the Apostle 
so pi'onouncing; other foundation no one can lay besides that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But to Peter has the 
Truth thus sanctioned the Church's privilege : ' Thou art 
Peter, and upon his this Bock I will build my Church.' " 

Alcuin, the most distinguished scholar of the latter half 
of the eighth century, who died in 804, wrote, twenty years 
before his death: "Let no Catholic dare to contend against 
the authority of the Church, lest he be found to be a schis- 
matic or a non-Catholic; let him folloio the most approved 
authority of the Roman Church, that whence we have received 
the seeds of the Catholic faith we may find the exemplars of 
salvation; that the members be not severed from their Head; 
that the Key-bearer of the Heavenly Kingdom may not reject 
them as having wandered from his doctrines.'' (Ep. Ixx.) 

S. Anselm, the famous scholastic philosopher and Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who died in 1089, informs us: ^^ Itis 
certain that he tuho does not obey the ordinances of the Roman 
Pontiff, lohich are issued for the mMintenance of the Christian 
religion, is disobedient to the Apostle Peter, whose Vicar he is, 
nor is he of that flock which was given to hiin {Peter) by God. 
Let him, then, find some other gates of the Kingdom of 



86 THE POPE: 

Heaven, for by those he shall not go in, of which the Apos- 
tle Peter holds the Keys." (Ep. xiii.) 

And the holy Abbot of Kidal, in Yorkshire, S. iElred, 
whom Butler says died in 1167, earnestly exhorts: *' Breth- 
ren, let no one seduce you with vain words. Let no one say 
to you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, since Christ ever abides in 
the faith of Peter, which the Holy Roman Church has especially 
received from Peter , and retains in the Pock, which is Christ. 
.... Of this Church Peter was the first Prince, to whom 
it was said, 'Upon this Bock I will build My Church;' and 
again, ' Feed My Sheep;' and again, ' To thee will I give the 
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt 
bind upon earth shall be bound, too, in heaven,' and the rest. 
This is the Church which the Holy Apostle calls of the 
first-horn, the plentitude of ivhose power in the person of its- 
Prince parsing over from the East to the West by the authority 
of the Holy Spirit established itself in the Roman Church. . . . 
This is the Roman Church, with whom he who communicates 
not is a heretic. To her it belongs to advise all, to judge of 
all, to provide for all, to whom in Peter that word was ad- 
dressed, 'And thou, sometime converted, confirm thy breth- 
ren.' Whatsoever she decrees I receive; I approve what 
she approves; what she condemns I condemn." (Serm. 23.) 

The Church in England planted by 8. Gregory grew for 
930 years, that is, to the so-called Beformation, upholding 
with the "Undivided Church," that the test of being in 
the True Church, and of holding the True Faith, is commu- 
nion with the Apostolic See. " Defender of the Faith," a 
title of the Kings of England, was conferred on Henry YIII. 
by Pope Leo X., for his work^ " Defence of the Sacraments. ''^ 
The Boyal Author therein valiantly upholds the prerogatives 
of the Pope. The Vatican Library has the presented copy, 
with Henry's inscription, " Anglorum Bex Henricus, Leo 
decime, mittit Hoc opus et fidei testem et amicitiae." This 
work, defending the Pope and the teaching of the Boman 
Church, was published twelve years before Henry YIIL 
proclaimed, by Act of Parliament, his own Spiritual Su- 
premacy. 



CHAPTER YI. 

THE PAPACY AN OBJECT OF DEVOTION. 

A KEEN devotion to the Holy See and to the Pope has been 
a special characteristic of all the Saints in every age of the 
Church. Bitter hatred of the Papacy has been a marked 
feature of every heretic and schismatic. To the unbeliever 
the power of Rome has invariably been an object of su- 
premest scorn and a source of intense irritation. To the 
fervent Missioner of the Church the See of S. Peter has 
been an object of veneration, a fountain of light, a sure 
guide in difficulties, a fortress to be defended with unflinch- 
ing courage. The cold, indifferent Catholic holds but little 
to the counsels of the Sovereign Pontiff, and is ever ready, 
through worldly prudence or cowardice, to minimize the 
power of the Pope. The Catholic, solid in faith, possessed of 
spiritual discernment, and eager in the work of salvation, 
ever manifests a high-minded allegiance, an exceeding loy- 
alty to the successors of S. Peter, a child-like love and a 
manly bravery in defending th,e interests of the Holy See. 

From these undeniable facts it is not difficult to gather 
that devotion to the Papacy is the necessary consequence o£ 
strong faith, and an essential part of Catholic piety. 

i. Inward Keverence; Outward Honor.— As we have seen, 
tlie Pope is the Yicar of Christ on earth, the holder of 
the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the possessor of the 
Sovereign Authority over the Church of Christ. 

Viceroys and Ambassadors of Kings are honored because 
of those whom they represent; and every insult to them is 
resented as if offered to their Lords and Masters. In like 
manner, what is done to the Pope, whether it be for or 
against him, has to be referred to Jesus Himself. From 
this standpoint in the light of faith, if ' honor is to be ren- 
dered to whom honor is due,' then assuredly ought there be 

(87) 



88 THE pope: 

to the Vicar of Christ in the heart and mind of every Cath- 
olic a reverential love, a reverential fear, finding expression 
not only in words but in deeds of unfeigned homage. 

To ponder on the dignity of the Pope, to sympathize in 
his sorrows, to rejoice in his joys, to be interested in his 
interests, to speak reverentially of him and of his doings, 
to visit Eome, to seek the Apostolic blessing, to secure 
priests and bishops trained in the Eternal City bearers of 
the traditions of the Holy See^ to be anxious to have Legates 
or Nuncios of the Pope settled in our midst, to desire Car- 
dinal protectors of our countries resident in Pome, to have 
national seminaries near to the Tombs of the Apostles, to 
establish Peligious Orders having their Generals dwelling 
near to the Holy Father: are so many ways of showing our 
reverence and homage to the Vicar of Christ. 

11. Loyal Obedience: Dutiful Allegiance.— "The Pope," 
says Cardinal Newman, "like St. Peter, is the Vicar of his 
Lord. He can judge and he can acquit; he can pardon and 
he can condemn; he can command and he can permit; he 
can forbid and he can punish. He has a supreme jurisdic- 
tion over the people of God. He can stop the ordinary 
course of sacramental mercies; he can excommunicate from 
the ordinary grace of redemption; and he can remove again 
the ban which he has inflicted. It is the rule of God's prov- 
idence that what His Vicar does in severity or in mercy on 
earth. He Himself confirms in heaven. . . . 

" In the Pope's administration of Christ's Kingdom, in his 
religious acts, we must never oppose his will, or dispute his 
word, or criticise his policy, or shrink from his side. There 
are kings of the earth who have despotic authority, which 
their subjects obey, indeed, but disown in their hearts; but 
we must never murmur at that absolute rule which the Sov- 
ereign Pontiff has over us, because it is given to him by 
Christ, and in obeying him we are obeying his Lord. We 
must never suffer ourselves to doubt that in his government 
of the Church he is guided by an intelligence more than 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 89 

human. His yoke is the yoke of Christ; he has the responsi- 
bility of his own acts, not we; and to his Lord must he render 
an account, not to us. Even in secular matters it is ever 
safe to be on his side; dangerous to be on the side of his 
enemies. Our duty is — not, indeed, to mix up Christ's 
Vicar with this or tUat party of men, because he in his high 
station is above all parties — but to look at his formal deeds, 
and to follow him whither he goeth, and never to desert him, 
however we may be tried, but to defend him at all hazards 
and against all comers, as a son would a father, and as a wife 
a husband, knowing that his cause is the cause of God." 

And elsewhere : ''The voice of Peter is now, as it ever 
has been, a real authority, infallible when it teaches, pros- 
perous when it commands, ever taking the lead wisely and 
distinctly in its own province, adding certainty to what is 
probable and persuasion to what is certain. Before it 
speaks, the most saintly may mistake; and after it has spoken 
the most gifted must obey. 

''Peter is no recluse, no abstracted student, no dreamer 
about the past, no doter upon the dead and gone, no pro- 
jector of the visionary. Peter for eighteen hundred years 
has lived in the world; he has seen all fortunes; he has en- 
countered all adversaries; he has shaped himself for all 
emergencies. If there ever was a power on earth who had 
an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the prac- 
ticable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose 
words have been deeds, and whose commands prophecies, 
such is he, in the history of ages, who sits from generation 
to generation in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Yicar of 
Christ and Doctor of His Church. It was said by an old 
philosopher, who declined to reply to an imperious argu- 
ment : ' It is not safe controverting with the master of twenty 
legions.' What Augustus had in the material order, that 
and much more has Peter in the spiritual. When was he 
ever unequal to the occasion ? When has he not risen with 
the crisis ? What dangers have ever daunted him ? What 
sophistry foiled him ? What uncertainties misled him ? 
When did ever any power go to war with Peter, material or 



90 THE pope: 

moral, civilized or savage, and get the better ? When did 
the whole world ever band together against him solitary and 
not find him too many for it ? 

"All who take part with Peter are on the winning side. 
The Apostle of Christ says not in order to unsay : for he has 
inherited that word which is with power."* 

To these ever-to-be remembered loyal expressions of a 
heart sensitively devoted to Christ's Yicar on earth, may be 
added the authoritative teaching of that Yicar himself, 
Leo XIII., written as lately as June 17, 1885: 

''In the Church of God, by the express will of its Divine 
Founder, two distinct orders are established in the plainest 
way — the teaching Church and the Church taught, the pas- 
tors and the flocS: — and among the pastors one of them who 
is for all the Supreme Head and Pastor. To the pastors 
alone has been given the full power of teaching, judging, 
directing; on the faithful has been imposed the duty of fol- 
lowing these teachings, of submitting with docility to these 
judgments, of letting themselves be governed, corrected, and 
led to salvation. Accordingly, it is a matter of absolute 
necessity that the faithful laity ^ should submit themselves 
with heart and mind to their own pastors, and these with 
them to the Supreme Head and Pastor. On this subordi- 
nation and obedience depend the order and life of the 
Church. They are the indispensable condition for doing 
right and arriving happily in port. If, on the contrary, the 
laity attribute authority to themselves ; if they claim to make 
themselves judges and doctors; if inferiors prefer, or try to 
make prevail, in the government of the universal Church, a 
direction different from that of the supreme authority, they 
are practically overturning order, bringing confusion into a 
great number of minds, and departing from the right way. 

"And it is not necessary, in order to fail in so sacred a 
duty, to offer an open opposition, either to the Bishops or 
the Head of the Church; indirect opposition is enough; and 
it is the more dangerous the more it is sought to veil it by the 
appearance of the contrary. A man fails also in that sacred 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 91 

duty if, while slioiving himself jealous for the power and prerog- 
atives of the Soverngn Pontiff, he does not respect the Bishops 
tuho are in communion ivith him, or does not hold their authority 
in due account, or interprets unfavorably their acts and intentions 
before any decision of the Apostolic See, It is also a proof of 
insincere submission to establish an opposition between Sovereign 
Pontiff' and Sovereign Pontiff'. Those who, in the case of 
two different directions, reject the present one, and hold to 
the past one, give no proof of obedience to the authority 
which has the right and duty of directing them, and in some 
respects resemble those who, after condemnation, would ap- 
peal from it to the next Council, or to a better informed 
Pope. 

'* The right opinion on this point, then, is that in the gen- 
eral government of the Church, outside of the essential 
duties of the Apostolic Ministry which are iniposed on all 
Pontiffs, each of them is free to follow the rule of conduct 
which he judges best for the times, and the other circum- 
stances of the case. In that He is the sole judge, having on 
this point not only special lights, but also the knowledge of 
the situation and the general needs of the Catholic Church, 
according to which it is fitting that His Apostolic solicitude 
should be regulated. His duty is to care for the good of the 
Universal Church, with which is co-ordinated the good of its 
various parts, and all those who are placed under this co- 
ordination must second the action of the Supreme Director 
and assist his plans. As the Church is One, and as its 
Head is One, so its government is likewise One, and to that 
all must conform themselves. 

" The result for Catholics of forgetfulness of these princi^ 
pies is a diminution of respect, veneration and confidence 
towards him who has been given to them as Head. The 
bonds of love and obedience which should unite all the 
faithful to their pastors, and the faithful as well as their 
pastors to the Supreme Pastor, are thus weakened. And 
yet on these bonds principally depend the preservation and 
the salvation of all. 



^2 THE pope: 

* ' By forgetting and no longer observing these principles, 
a broad road is opened for dissensions and discords among 
Catholics, to the great detriment of the union which is the 
distinctive mark of the faithful of Jesus Christ. At all 
times, but particularly at present on account of the combi- 
nation of so many hostile powers, this union ought to be the 
^supreme and universal interest, in presence of which every 
feeling of personal liking or private advantage ought to dis- 
appear. 

" Such a duty, while incumbent upon all without exception, 
is most strictly so on journalists, who, if they were not ani- 
anated with the spirit of docility and submission so neces- 
sary to every Catholic, would help to extend and greatly 
-aggravate the evils that we deplore. Their obligation in all 
that touches religious interests and the action of the Church 
in society is therefore to submit themselves fully with heart 
jaud mind, like all the other faithful, to their own Bishops 
.and to the Roman Pontiff, to follow and reproduce their 
teachings, to second heartily their motions, to respect 
iheir intentions and to make them respected." — " Tablet." 

These words of the Holy Father now guiding the Bark of 
"S. Peter need no commentary to enforce loyal obedience. 

iii. The Tribute of Prayer-— On the Yicar of Christ de- 
volve most momentous duties and immense responsibilities, 
the like of which no other man has. A single day's govern- 
ment of the Church of God involves more important conse- 
quences than does the rule of the mightiest or most widely- 
spread nation. The consciences of millions are to be in- 
formed; the peace of thousands depend on the appeals made 
to Eome. 

To the innumerable anxieties consequent on such arduous 
duties must be added the sorrows brought by lurking ene- 
mies within, and open enemies without the Church. There 
will ever be Judases to betray with a kiss, and Pilates with 
Herods to succumb to popular exigencies. The Vatican 
must ever be a Calvary. 



THE YICAK OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. " 9^ 

God, in His ineffable good||iess, fits His Vicar for the 
office, and continuously aids him in the exercise of his ex- 
ceeding great responsibilities, by special grace. Tlie Holy 
Spirit is ever directing and sustaining the steps of Peter in 
his successors, the Roman Pontiffs. 

But for such succor, supplication has ever to be made. 
Hence, wherever and whenever the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: 
is ofi'ered, the living Pope is prayed for by name. In the 
Missal there are special Collects for the Supreme Pastor to 
be said at appointed times. And in the one Liturgical 
Litany, that of the Saints, are there special prayers for the 
reigning Pope. 

Therein God is, in mercy, asked to grant to His servant 
whom he has pleased to appoint Pastor of the Flock, pre- 
servation and length of days; blessedness on earth; deliver- 
ance from enemies; direction in the way of salvation; con- 
tinued protection; desires to do what is pleasing to God, and 
doing it with all his strength; edification oithe flock bT 
word and example; the salvation of himself and his fold. 

As often as the hand of persecution is on the Vicar of 
Christ, or that he stands in exceptional need of assistance 
from on high, the Church makes unceasing public prayer,, 
as it did of old when Peter was cast into prison. 

These public appeals to the Throne of God remind the 
members of the Church that both charity and justice ought 
to lead them to make self-sacrificing prayer for the Sov- 
ereign Pontiff. 

Nay, gratitude urges the same duty. For every Catholic 
ought to know that the action of the supreme power of the 
Vicar of Christ daily operates in the spiritual life of every 
child of the Church. In a genuine and real sense is the 
Pope called the Holy leather. The individual Catholic should 
know that every absolution received, every indulgence 
gained, every blessing obtained by the *soul through the 
ordinary channels of divine grace, is derived directly from 
the ministration of the immediate priest or bishop, but 
ultimately from Christ's Vicegerent, the Pope, who, from 
that reservoir of spiritual and divine authority committed to 



94 THE pope: 

him by the Incarnate Son of God, dispenses, through dulj 
appointed ministers, the wafer of life in streamlets to each 
individual soul in Holy Church. 

iv. The Tribute of Peter's Pence.— For the service of 
God, and to acknowledge His supreme dominion over men, 
the Jews had to give one-tenth of all fruits and profits justly 
acquired. Under the Christian dispensation no specified 
portion is allotted for Divine worship; but the obligation to 
contribute still exists. St. Paul says: "The Lord hath 
ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live by 
the Gospel." (1 Cor. ix. 14.) 

This being so, it devolves on all the members of the 
Church to give some portion of their substance to support 
the Chief Pastor, the Bishop of Bishops. His personal 
daily wants are met by the most modest pittance. But, for 
the administration of the Government, of the Church, and 
to meet the aecessary expenses of missionary work, the Pope 
must have a considerable amount of money at his command. 
The greatest economy is used. Some of the most distin- 
guished of the clergy employed in the administration re- 
ceive salaries for which a second or third-class clerk would 
not give his services in America. 

On the free-will offerings of the Faithful must the Pope 
usually depend for material resources — the more so now, as 
the Holy See has been robbed of its temporal possessions. 
The Vatican and its Garden still leave the Pope a King, but 
imprisoned and without revenue. Our present Holy Father 
did, in his letter to the Bishop of Orleans, say of Peter's 
Pence: •' It is a work of capital importance, without which 
there would be for the Holy See neither liberty nor dignity, 
nor any assured means of exercising its divine ministry." 

In the providence of God may this not be an occasion 
leading the children of the Church not to leave merely to the 
generosity of individuals, nor to occasional collections, the 
support of the Head of the Church, but by systematic 
organization to establish something like a regular, perma- 
nent revenue, still leaving individuals to do what their 



THE YICAK OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 9 

devotion or special gratitude may dictate. An income 
banked in the pious generosity of tlxe faithful, completely 
made up of voluntary contributions, would be sheltered 
from the covetous greed and the rapacious hands of church- 
spoilers. It would, of course, be non-rateable property, and 
all, even to the last farthing, that would be given could 
without any loss be at the service of the Holy Father. 

In many churches, by the order and under the direction 
of the Bishop of the diocese, an annual collection on a fixed 
Sunday is made for the maintenance of the Sovereign Pontiff. 
This is a great step in advance. 

Our forefathers, in the British Isles, deemed it a duty and 
an honor to tax every family or every house in the land for 
the Vicar of S. Peter, Bishop of Rome. The sum fixed was 
one penny, no inconsiderable amount in those days. 

Why not return with some modification to this same plan ? 
It is a duty to support our pastors, and therefore the Pastor 
of Pastors. Why should there be delicacy in teaching such 
an obligation ? Let it be a part of the theoretical and prac- 
tical education of our people. Let it be inculcated as a 
part of the religious training in our schools, our convents 
and our colleges. 

Suppose that every Catholic were trained from childhood 
to give once a month the lowest coin of the State as Peter's 
Pence to the immediate pastor, or to put it into a Peter's 
Pence Box prominently placed in the church or chapel 
attended; allow that the pastor transmitted this month by 
month to the Bishop of the Diocese, who in turn sent it to 
the Holy See every quarter or half year: thus would be 
secured, without any new organization or extra labor, and 
without interfering with special gifts, the maintenance of the 
Sovereign Pontiff. The dignity of the Holy See would be 
sustained; and the Holy Father's hands so enriched, could 
dispense such aid as would very materially advance the great 
missionary work of the Church. 

Apart from the approach to a fixed revenue which might 
be thus collected, the very fact of being invited to make 
twelve such offerings every year would be so many acts 



96 



THE pope: 



upholding that ** Devotion to the Pope " which every earnest 
Catholic must see becomes more and more necessary in the 
present state of the world. Such an organized collection 
would have the further advantage of reminding Catholics of 
their solemn obligation to do their best in supporting their 
parochial schools and Churches. 



CHAPTER VII. 



LIST OF THE POPES AND OF THEIR TITLES- 



The First Century: — 



S. Peter, 42-67 or 68. 
S.Linus (2Tim. iv., 21). 



S. Anenclitus, or Cietus. 
S. Clement, 92-101. 



The Second Century: — 



S. Evaristus. 

S. Alexander, until 119. 

S. Xystus (Sixtus), until 127. 

S. Telesphorus, 127-139. 

S. Hyginus, 139-142. 



S. Pius, 142-157. 
S. Anicetus, 157-168 
S. Soter, 168-177. 
S. Elutherius, 177-192. 
S. Victor, 192-202. 



The Third Century :- 



S. Zephyiinus, 202-219. 
S. Callistus, 219-223. 
S. TJrbanus, 223-230. 
S. Pontianus, 230-235. 
S. Antherus, 235-236. 
■S. Fabianus, 236-250. 
S. Cornelius, 251-252. 
S. Lucius, 253. 



S. Stephen I., 253-257. 

S. Xystus II. (Sixtus), 257-258. 

S. Dionysius, 259-269. 

S. Felix I., 269-274. 

S. Eutychianus, 274-283. 

S. Caius, 283-296. 

S. Marcellinus, until 304. 



The Fourth Century :- 



S. Marcellus, 308-310. 

S. Eusebius, 310. 

S. Melchiades, 311-314. 

S. Sylvester I., 314-315. 

S . Marcus, 336. 

S. Julius I., 337-352. 



Liberius, 352-366. (Felix II., 

355, Anti-Pope. 
S. Damasus, 366-384, 
S. Siricius, 385-398. 
S. Auastasius, 402. 



* The best list of Popes is Bianchini Editio Anastas, biblioth. de vitis Rom. Pontificum 
Hist, of Popes by Haas, Tiib.; by Groene, Ratisb. 1864 sq., 2 vols. ; Alzog's Ch, Hist. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 



97 



The Fifth Century:— 



S. Innocent I., 402-417. 

S. Zosimus, 417-418. 

S. Boniface, 418-422. 

S. Ccelestine, 422-432. 

S. Sixtus III., 432-440. 

S. Leo I., the Great, 440-461. 

S. Hilarius, 461-467. 



S. Simplieius, 467-483. 
S. Felix III., 483-492. 
S. Galasius I., 492-496. 
S. Anastasins, 496-497. 
S. Symmachus, 498-514. 
rence, Anti-Pope). 



(Law- 



The Sixth Century :- 



S. Hormisdas, 514-523. 
S. John I., 523-526. 
S. Felix IV., 526-530. 
S Boniface II., 530-532. 
S.John II., 532-535. 
S. Agapetus, 535-536. 
S. Silverius, 536-540. 

The 

Sabinian, 604-605. 
Boniface III. , 606. 
S. Boniface IV.. 607-614. 
S. Deusdedit, 615-618. 
Boniface v., 619-625. 
Honorius I., 625-638. 
Severimis, until 640. 
John IV., 640-642. 
Theodore I., 642-649. 
S. Martin I., 649-655. 

The 

John VI., 701-705. 
John VII., 705-707. 
Sisinnius, 708. 
Constantine, 708-715. 
S. Gregory II., 715-731. 
S. Gregory III., 731-741. 
S. Zachary, 741-752. , 



The 



Stephen V., 816. 
S. Paschal I., 817-824. 
Eugene II., 824-827. 
Valentine, 827. 
Gregory IV., 827-844. 
SergiusII., 844-847. 
S. Leo IV., 847-855. 
Benedict III., 855-858. 

7 



Vigilius (537), 540-555. 
Pelagius I., 555-560. 
John III., 560-573. 
Benedict I., 574-578. 
Pelagius II.. 578-590. 
S. Gregory I., the Great, 590- 
604. 

Seventh Century: — 

Eugene I. (654), 655-657. 

S. Vitalian, 657-672. 

Adeodatus, 672-676. 

Donus or Domnus I., 676-678. 

S. Agatho, 678-682. 

S Leo II., 682-683. 

S. Benedict II., until 685. 

John v., 685-686. 

Conon, 687. 

S. Sergius I., 687-701. 

Eighth Century: — 

Stephen II., 752. 

[Died -without ha-^ting been conse- 
crated. Is not counted by the 
majority of historians.] 

Stephen III., 752-757. 

S. Paul I., 757-7G7. 

Stephen IV., 768-772. 

Hadrian I., 772-795. 

S. Leo III., 795-816. 

Ninth Century: — 

S. Nicholas I. (the Great) 858-867 
S.Hadrian II., 667-872. 
John VIII., 872-882. 
Marinus I. 882-884. 
Hadrian III., 884-885. 
Stejjhen VI., 885-891. 
Formosus, 891-896. 



^8 



THE pope: 



The Ninth Century (Continued) : — 



Boniface VI., 896 (15 days). 
Stephen YII , 896-897. 
Bomanus, 897 



Theodore II., 897 or 898. 
John IX., 898-900 



The Tenth Century — 



Benedict IV., 900-903 
Leo v., 903. 
Christopher, 903. 
Sergius III., 904-911. 
Anastasius III., 911-913. 
Lando, 913. 
John X., 914-928. 
Leo VII., 928. 
Stephen VIII., 929-931. 
John XI., 931-936. 
Leo VI., 936-939. 
Stephen IX , 939-942. 
Marinus II., 943-946. 
Agapete II., 946-955. 



John XII., 956-964. 

(Leo VIII., 963o Benedict V., 
964. Anti-Popes). 

John XIII., 965-972. 

Benedict VI., 972-974. 

(Boniface, Franco, VII., 974.) 

Benedict VII., 974-983. 

John XIV., 983-984. 

John XV., 984-996. 

Gregory V., 996-999. (1st Ger- 
man Pope). 

(John XVI., 997, Anti-Pope). 

Sylvester II., 999-1003. (1st 
French Pope). 



The Eleventh Century : 



John XVII., 1003. 

John XVIII., 1003-1009. 

Sergius IV., 1009 1012. 

Benedict VIII., 1012-1024. 

John XIX., 1024-1033. 

Benedict IX., 1033-1044. 

Gregory VI., 1044-1046. 

Clement II., 1046-1047. (2d Ger- 
man Pope) . 

Damasus n., 1048, 23 days. (3d 
German Pope) . 

S. Leo IX., 1049-1054. (4th Ger- 
man Pope). 



Victor II., 1055-1057, (5th Ger- 
man Pope). 

Stephen X., 1057-1058. (6th Ger- 
man Pope. 

Nicholas II., 1058-1061. {Ith 
German Pope; 

Alexander II., 1061-1073. (Hou- 
orius II., Anti-Pope). 

S. Gregory VII , 1073-1085. 

Victor III., 1086-1087 

Urban II., 1088-1099 

Paschal II., 1099-1118. 



The Twelfth Century : — 



Gelasius II., 1118. 
Calixtus IL, 1119-1124. 
Honorius IL, 1124-1130. 
Innocent II. , 1130-1143. 
Coelestine II., 1143. 
Lucius II. , 1144-1145. 
S. Eugene III., 1145-1153. 
Anastasius IV., 1153-1154 



Hadrian IV. 1154-1159 (English) 
Alexander III., 1159-1181. 
Lucius III., 1181-1185. 
Urban III., 1185-1187. 
Gregory VIII., 1187. 
Clement III., 1187-1191. 
Coelestine III., 1191-1198. 
Innocent III., 1198-1216, 



THE VIOAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OP THE CHURCH. 



99 



The Thirteenth Century: — 



Honorius III., 1216-1227. 
Oregory IX., 1227-1241. 
CoelestineIV.,1241. (17 days). 
Innocent IV., 1241-1254. 
Alexander IV., 1254-1261 
Urban IV., 1261-1264. 
€lement IV.. 1264-1268. 
31. Gregory X., 1271-1276. 
Innocent V., 1276. (A French- 
man). 
Hadrian v., 1276. (38 days). 



John XXI. (XX.) 1276-1277. (A 

Portuguese) . 
Nicholas III., 1277-1280. 
Martin IV., 1281^1285. (A 

Frenchman). 
Honorius IV., 1285-1287. 
Nicholas IV., 1288-1292. 
S. Cgelestine V., 1294. (Resigns 

voluntarily, 1296). 
Boniface VIII., 1294-1303. 



The Fourteenth Century :- 



Bl. Benedict XI., 1303-1304. 

Popes of Avignon f Frenchmen). 
Clement v., 1305-1314. 
John XXII., 1316-1334. 
Benedict XII., 1334-1342. 
Clement VI., 1342-1352. 
Innocent VI., 1352-1362. 
S. Urban v., 1362-1370. 



Gregory XI., 1370-1378. 

Popes at Rome and Avignon. 
Urban VI., 1378-1389. (Clement 

VII., at Avignon, 1378-1394.) 
Boniface IX., 1389-1404. (Btne- 

dict XIII., at Avignon, 1394- 

1417). 



The Fifteenth Century: — ' 



Innocent VII., 1404-1406. 

Gregory XII., 1406-1409. 

Alexander v., 1409-1410. (Elected 
by the Council of Pisa). 

John XXIII., 1410-1415. (De- 
posed by the Council of Con- 
stance, May 29th, 1415; so like- 
wise Benedict XIII., April 1st, 
1417; and Gregory XII., resigned 
voluntarily). 

Martin V., 1417-1431. 



(A 



Eugune IV., 1431-1447. (Felix 
v., Anti-Pope, 1439-1448). 

Nicholas v., 1448-1455. 

Calixtus III., 1455-1458. 
Spaniard). 

Pius II., 1458-1464. 

Paul II., 1464-1471. 

Sixtus IV., 1471-1484. 

Innocent VIII., 1484-1492. 

Alexander VI., 1492-1503. 
Spaniard) . 



(A 



Pius III., 1503. 

Julius II., 1503-1513. 

LeoX., 1513-1521. 

Hadrian VI., 1522-1523. (A Neth 

erlander) 
Clement VII., 1523-1534. 
Paul III., 1534-1549. 
Julius III., 1550-1555. 
Marcellus II (Only 21 days). 
Paul IV . 1555-1559. 



The Sixteenth Century: — 

Pius IV., 1559-1565. 



S. Pius V. 1566-1572. 
Gregory XIII., 1572-1585. 
Sixtus v., 1585-1590. 
Urban VII. (13 days). 
Gregory XIV. (10 months and 

10 days). 
Innocent IX., 1591. (A little 

more than two months). 
Clement VIII., 1592-1605. 



100 



THE pope: 



Tlie Seventeentli Century: — 



Leo XI. (27 days). 
Paul v., 1605-1621. 
Gregory XV., 1621-1623. 
Urban VIII., 1623-1644. 
Innocent X., 1644-1655. 
Alexander VII., 1655-1667. 



Clement IX., 1667-1669, 
Clement X., 1670-1676. 
Innocent XI., 1676-1689. 
Alexander VIII., 1689-1691. 
Innocent XII., 1691-1700.. 



The Eighteenth Century :- 



Clement XI., 1700-1721. 
Innocent XIII., 1721-1724. 
Benedict XIII. , 1724-1730. 
Clement XII., 1730-1740. 



Benedict XIV., 1740-1758. 
Clement XIII., 1758-1769, 
Clement XIV., 1769-1774. 
Pius VI., 1775-1799. 



The Nineteenth Century: — 



Pius., VII., 1800-1823. 
Leo XII., 1823-1829. 
Pius VIII., 1829-1830. 



Gregory XVI., 1831-1846. 
Pius IX., 1846-1878. 



LEO XIII., 

Now gloriously reigning. 



2. To this list of the Successors of S. Peter in his Chair at; 
Koine may be fitly added the titles and appellations given 
from the earliest times to the Pope and his See by Christian 
writers, and used in various Church documents. Each of 
such appellations expresses a summary of the belief of those 
who used it, in one or other of the prerogatives, of the Suc- 
cessor of S. Peter. 

By a happy thought, S. Francis of Sales, the one canonized 
Saint who specially labored among our dissenting brethren, 
has collected into litany form several of these titles. The 
characteristic piety of this author in casting into such a 
form the appellations of the Apostolic See and its occupant 
may well be followed. 

The additions made to the list of such titles by the re- 
searches of modern days maybe seen in Allnatt's '* Cathedra 
Petri," and in '* The Primacy of S. Peter demonstrated from 
the Liturgy of the Graeco-Russian Church," by Tondini. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 101 

3Eeir of Peter's Administration; 
(Bishops of Spain, 440 A. D.) 

Most Divine Head of all Heads; ^ 

(S.Theodore, A. D. 809.) 

Eolj Father of Fathers, Pontiff Supreme over all Prelates; 

(Bishops of Africa, 649 A. D.) 

Overseer of the Christian Religion; 

(A. Marcellinus, Pagan Historian, A. D. 360.) 

The Chief Pastor; Pastor of Pastors; 
(S. Columbanus, Ireland, born 543.) 

Peter, by thy Power; 

(S. Bernard, A. D. 1150.) 

Christ, by Unction; 

(id.) 

Servant, of the Servants of the Lord; 

(S. Gregory the Great, died 604.) 

Apostolic Chair, Apostolic See, Chair of Peter the Apostle; 

(S.Jerome, A. D. 390.) 

Apostolic Throne; 

(S. Athanasius, A. D. 362.) 

Place in which the Apostles constantly sit in Judgment; 

(Council of Aries, A. D. 314.) 

The Place of Peter ; 

(S. Cyprian, martyred A. D. 250.) 

Abraham by Patriarchate; 

(S. Ambrose, 1 Tim. iii., died 340.) 

Melchisedec in Order; 

(S. Bernard.") 

Moses in Authority; 

(id.) 
Samuel in the Judicial Office; 

(id.) 
High Priest, Supreme Bishop; 

(id.) PROTECT US* 



102 THE pope: 

Prince of Bishops; 

(id.) 

Heir of the Apostles; Peter in power; 

(id.) 

Key-Bearer of the Kingdom of Heaven; 

(id.) 

Pontiff, appointed with plenitude of power; 
(id.) 

Supreme Chief; Most powerful Word; 

(Ignatius of Constantinople, 869.) 

Orderer, Healer, Pre-eminent Catholic Physician; 
(id.) 

Yicar of Christ; 

(Eoman Council, 494.) 

Sovereign Bishop of Bishops; 

(Council of Chalcedon, 451.) 

Sovereign Priest; 
(id.) 

Buler of the House of the Lord; 

(Cou. Carthage to Pope Damasus, died 384.) 

Guardian of the Vine of the Lord; 
(Cou. Chalcedon.) 

Prelate of the Apostolic See ; 

(S. Vincent of Lerins, 434.) 
Peter, who lives and presides in his own See;, 

(S. Peter Chrysologus, died 454.) 

See, never overcome by the Gates of Hell; 

(Pope Gelasius, died 496, and S. Augustine.) 

Sovereign Pontiff; 

(Cou. of Chalcedon.) 

Apostolic Lord and Father of Fathers; 

(Bishops of Dardania, 495.) GOVERN TJB. 



THE VICAR OF CHEIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 103 

Peter speaking through Leo, through Agatho; 

(Cou. Chalcedon, and Gth General.) 

(Ecumenical Archbishop and Patriarch; 

(in Cou. Chalcedon.) 

Head and Chief of the Episcopate; 

(Pope Innocent, died 417.) 

The Bishop of the Catholic Church; 

(Pope Cornelius, martyred 252.) 

Constituted unto all men Interpreter of the Voice of B. Peter. 

(Cou. Chalcedon.) 

Peter, who always lives and exercises judgment in his 
Successors; 
(id.) 
Chief Pastor and Teacher and Physician of Souls; 

(Eastern Clergy to Pope Hormisdas, 514.) 

True Pastor and Doctor; 
(id.) 

Eock of Faith; 

(S. John Chrysostom, died 404.) 

See, in which the tradition of the Apostles has always been 
preserved; 

(S. Irengeus, martyred 202.) 

Apostolic See, wherein the Catholic religion has ever been 
preserved immaculate and faith taught without stain; 
(Formula of Hormisdas, 516.) 

Bock, against which the proud Gates of Hell prevail not; 

(S. Augustine, died 430.) 

Apostolic Throne, where are the foundations of Orthodox 
Faith; 
(Stephen of Dora, 649.) 

See, in which Christ has deposited the Keys of Faith; 
(S. Theodore, Abbot, Constantinople, 809.) 

Infallible Pope; 

(Cou. Vatican, 1870.) TEACH US. 



104 THE pope: 

Ohair of Peter, Ruling Churcli, wheiice the Unity of the 
Priesthood has its source; 

(S. Cyprian, Letter 55 to Pope Cornelms.) 

^oot and Matrix of the Catholic Church; 

(id. in another letter to Cornelius.) 

One Church and one Chair, founded by the Voice of the 
Lord upon a Rock; 
(id. to the Pope, 40.) 

Church, from which rights of Communion flow to all; 

(S. Ambrose, Letter 11, died 397.) 

Holy Church, established on the firmness of the Chief of 
the Apostles; 

(S. Gregory the Great, died 604.) 

Bee, which the Lord appointed to preside over the rest; 
(S. Leo, Letter 120 to Theodoret, died 461.) 

Head over the members; 

(id.) 
Head of all the Holy Priests of God; 

(Code of Justinian, Book i.) 

Head of all the Holy Churches; 

(Emperor Justinian, Letter to Pope John II.) 

Archbishop of the whole habitable world; 

(S. Cyril of Alexandria, died 444.) 

Chief of the Universal Church; 

(S. Avitus of Vienne, Letter 31, died 523.) 

Bishop of Bishops, that is. Sovereign Pontiff; 

(Tertullian, de Pudicitia c. 1., died about 220.) 

Presiding Church of Rome; 

(Letter to the Romans by S. Ignatius, disciple of the Apostle John and 
second Bishop of Antioch after the Apostle Peter, martyred 108.) 

Church, on account of thy more powerful Headship; 

(S. Irenseus against Heresies, Book ii.) 

Church, with which the faithful everywhere should agree; 
■(ibid.) UNITE US. 



THE YICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. IDS' 

The great S. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, "the coun- 
sellor of noblemen, bishops, princes and popes," writes, A. 
D. 1150, to Pope Eugenius III., using many of the titles 
above cited: 

'^ Who art thou? The High Priest, the Supreme Bishop. 
Thou art the Prince of Bishops, thou art the Heir of the 
Apostles. Thou art Abel in Primacy, Noah in government, 
Abraham in the patriarchal rank, in order Melchisedech, in 
dignity Aaron, in authority Moses, Samuel in the judicial 
office, Peter in power, Christ in unction. Thou art he to 
whom the Keys of Heaven are given, to whom the Sheep are 
intrusted. There are, indeed, other doorkeepers of Heaven, 
and other shepherds of the flocks; but thou art the more 
glorious in proportion as thou hast also, in a different 
fashion, inherited before others both these names. The 
iormer have the flocks assigned to them, each one his own: 
to thee all are intrusted. One Flock for the One. Not merely 
for the sheep, but for all the shepherds also thou art the 
One Shepherd. Whence do I prove this, thou askest? 
From the word of the Lord. For to whom — I say not among 
the Bishops, but among the Apostles — have the whole flock 
been committed in a manner so absolute and undistinguish- 
ing ? ' If thou lovest Me, Peter, feed My sheep. ' What sheep ? 
The inhabitants of this or that city or country, those of a 
particular kingdom ? ' My sheep,' He saith. Who does not 
see that He designates not some, but all? Nothing is ex- 
cepted where nothing is distinguished. The power of others 
is limited by definite bounds; thine extends even over those 
who have received authority over others. Canst thou not, 
when a just reason occurs, shut up Heaven against a Bishop, 
depose him from his episcopal office, and deliver him over 
to Satan ? Thus thy privilege is immutable, as well in the 
keys committed to thee as in the sheep intrusted to thy 
care." — {De Considerat. Lib. ii. c. 8, quoted by Hergenrother, 
Anti-Janus, Eng. trans, p. 100.) . 

3. And now our task is done, very imperfectly, it is true. 
Yet, the lines drawn and the facts cited will be, it is hoped, 
sufficient to satisfy the honest enquirer that the God of 



106 THE pope: 

Goodness has left for the conservation of Unity of Faith and 
Unity of Communion a Supreme, Universal and Yisible 
Head to His Church on earth, in the person of Peter and 
his Successors. 

The philosophical mind of Leibnitz, the eminent German 
Protestant, has seized and expressed in his '* Systema Theo- 
logica" the need for such a centre of unity. He says: ''As, 
from the impossibility of the bishops frequently leaving the 
people over whom they are placed, it is not possible to hold 
a Council continuously, or even frequently, while at the same 
time the person of the Church must always live and subsist, 
in order that its will may be ascertained, it was a necessary 
consequence, by the divine law itself, insinuated in Christ 's 
most memorable words to Peter (when he committed to him 
specially the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as 
when he thrice emphatically commanded him to feed his 
sheep), and uniformly 'believed in the Church, that one 
among the Apostles, and the successor of this one among 
the bishops, was invested with pre-eminent power; in order 
that by him, as the visible centre of unity, the body of the 
Church might be bound together ; the common necessities 
be provided for ; a Council, if necessary, be convoked, and, 
when convoked, directed ; and that in the interval between 
Councils provision might be made lest the commonwealth of 
the faithful sustain any injury. And as the ancients unani- 
mously attest that the Apostle Peter governed the Church, 
suffered martyrdom, and appointed his successor in the city 
of E>ome, the capital of the world ; and as no other bishop 
has ever been recognized under this relation, we justly 
acknowledge the Bishops of Eome to be chief of all the 
rest." 

S. Thomas of Aquinas, who died in 1274, on his way to 
that Council of Lyons already referred to as being convoked 
to heal the Greek schism, anticipates, as a theologian, in his 
great work ' ' Against the Gentiles " what we have cited from 
Leibnitz. 



THE VICAR OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. lOT 

Aquinas writes: " But should anyone object that Christ 
is the One Head and One Shepherd, who is the One Bride- 
groom of the One Church. The objection is not sufficient. 
For it is plain that Christ Himself performs the Sacraments 
of the Church. For it is He who baptizes; He who forgives 
sins; He is the true Priest who offered Himself on the altar 
of the Cross, and by whose virtue His body is daily conse- 
crated on the altar. And yet, because He was not at present 
to be visibly with the Church, He hath chosem Ministers by 
lohom He dispenses these sacraments to the faithful. 

*' Therefore, by the same reason, inasmuch as He was about- 
to withdraw His visible presence from the Church, it was 
fitting that He should commit to some one the charge of the 
Universal Church. Hence it is that He said to Peter, before 
His ascension, ' Feed my sheep ; ' and, before His passion, 
* Thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren.' 
And to Peter alone He promised ^ I will give to thee the? 
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,' so that the power of the 
Keys might be pointed out as to be derived through him ta 
others for the preservation of the Churches unity. 

'* But it cannot be said that although He gave this dignity 
to Peter, yet it is not derived through him to others. For it is- 
plain that Christ so set up His Church, that it would last 
forever, according to Isaias ix. 7 : ' He shall sit upon the^ 
Throne of David, and upon his Kingdom, to order it, and 
to establish it with judgment and with justice henceforth, 
forever.' 

r 

"It is plain, therefore, that He set up in their ministry 
those who then were, in such a way that their power should 
be continued in their successors for the good of the Church 
unto the end of the world; especially as He says Himself 
' Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the world.' 

"But by this is excluded the presumptuous error of certain 
persons who endeavor to withdraw themselves from obe- 
dience and subjection to Peter, by not recognising his 
Successor, the Boman Pontiff, as Pastor of the Universal 
Church." (Contra Gentiles, iv. 76). 



108 THE POPE: 

Eour hundred years ago the whole of Europe, including 
the English-speaking people, believed this. But, in an evil 
moment, Luther raised the standard of revolt, and the 
silent, seething spirit which had been long working in 
Europe, threw off, as the Jews did of old, the yoke of the 
Lord, in the person of His Vicar on Earth. 

Henry VIII., thwarted by the Pope, who refused to grant 
liim a divorce, led England to desert the Church of S. 
Augustine, and to repudiate the authority of the Successors 
of Pope Gregory the Great, the Apostle of England. 
Happily, his work, '* The Defence of the Seven Sacraments," 
published in 1521 against Luther, remains, to bear evidence 
to what the King believed before he became a slave to pas- 
sion. It is this work which obtained for him from Pope 
Leo X. the title still seen on the coins of the realm, *' De- 
fender of the Faith," ^. e., the Eoman Catholic Faith. 

The Eoyal author says: *'I will not offer such an insult 
to the Pope as to dispute anxiously and minutely about his 
rights, as if the matter could be considered doubtful. Luther 
<jannot deny that every orthodox church acknowledges and 
venerates the most holy Koman See as mother and head 
(primatemj, unless indeed by distance or intervening dangers 
some are prevented from access to her. Hence, if the Roman 
Pontiff has acquired this great and world-wide power, 
neither by the command of God nor even by the consent of 
men, but by his own violence, as Luther pretends, then I 
would ask him to inform us at what period, he seized this 
Tast dominion ? The beginning of so mighty a power can- 
not surely be obscure, especially if it has taken place in 
modern times. But even if it took place more than one or 
two ages ago, he may certainly give an account of it from 
history. If, however, it is so ancient that its origin is for- 
gotten, then he ought to know that it is a fixed and universal 
principle of all laws, that a power or right which so tran- 
scends the memory of men that its beginning cannot be 
ascertained, must ever be held to have begun lawfully; so 
that it is forbidden by the consent of all nations to 
overthrow what has long remained unmoved. 



THE YICAE OF CHRIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 10^ 

" But, most certainly, if any one will examine the records 
of antiquity he will find that, long ago, immediately after 
the cessation of persecution (protinus post pacatum orhem), 
almost all the churches of the Christian world obeyed the 
Boman Church, nay, even Greece herself though the empire 
had been transferred thither, yielded to the Eoman Church 
in whatever regarded the Primacy, except in times of some* 
violent schism. 

*'St. Jerome shows clearly what judgment he formed of 
the authority of the Roman See, since, though he was not 
himself a Eoman, yet he openly declares that it is enough 
for him if the Pope of Rome approves his faith, whoever 
else may find fault with it. 

**Now, as Luther so impudently lays down that the Pope 
has no right whatever over the Catholic Church, even by 
human law, but has acquired his tyranny by mere force, I 
greatly marvel that he should deem his readers so credulous 
or so stupid as to believe that an unarmed priest, alone, and 
without followers — and such he must have been in Luther's 
supposition before he obtained the power which he invaded — 
could ever even have hoped to acquire such an empire, being 
without rights and without title, over so many bishops who 
were his equals, and over so many and far separated nations. 
Nay, more than this, how can any one believe that all peoples, 
cities, provinces and kingdoms were so prodigal of their 
property, their rights and their liberty, as to give to a for- 
eign priest, to whom they owed nothing, more power than 
he himself ever dared to hope for ? But what matters it what 
Luther thinks ? In his anger and envy he does not know 
himself what he thinks, but shows that his science has been 
clouded, and his foolish heart darkened, and that he has 
been given up to a reprobate sense, to do and say what is 
unseemly. How true is the saying of the Apostle : * If I 
should have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and 
all science, and if I should have all faith so as to move moun- 
tains, and have not charity, I am nothing.' And how far 
from charity this man is, is evident from this, not only that 
in his madness he destroys himself, but still more that he 



110 THE pope: 

endeavors to draw all others with him to perdition, since he 
strives to turn all from their obedience to the Sovereign 
Pontiff. .... 

''He does not consider that, if it is provided in Deuter- 
onomy (xvii. 12) that he that will be proud and refuse to 
obey the commandment of the priest, who ministereth at 
ihat time to the Lord and the decree of the judge, that man 
shall die; what horrible punishment he must deserve, who 
refuses to obey the highest priest of all, and the supreme 
judge on earth! .... Yet Luther, as far as in him lies, 
disturbs the whole Church, and seduces the whole body to 
rebel against its head, to rebel ' against whom is like the sin 
of witchcraft, and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey.' 
{1 Kings XV. 23). 

''Wherefore, since Luther, hurried along by his hatred, 
casts himself into destruction, and refuses to be subject to 
the laws of God, setting up his own instead, let us, on the 
other hand, the followers of Christ, be on our guard lest, as 
the Apostle says, by the disobedience of one man, many be 
made sinners.'* (Defence of the Seven Sacraments cited 
from Rev. T. E. Bridge tt's Defender of the Faith). 

This was the inherited teaching of the people of the 
British Isles. This made them believe with the heart and 
profess with the mouth that one faith which alone was 
taught and practised through the length and breadth of the 
land during nigh a thousand years. 

King Henry's after-fall destroyed not the force of his 
argument. The Commandments are daily violated, but this 
lessens not their truth. The King deserted the Bark of 
Peter, and launched forth in a ship of his own build, flying 
the flag of his own Spiritual Supremacy. His crew, as 
might have been expected, having neither a true compass 
nor a divinely appointed Captain, are being worsted in the 
storm of doubt, know-nothingism and non-belief. 

Peter's Bark alone can ride the tempest. The invisible 
presence of Jesus is there. As of old, He teaches the 
multitude from the Ship of Peter. There can the soul find 



THE VICAR OP CHEIST; THE HEAD OF THE CHUECH. Ill 

safety in the surging sea of religious confusion. Earnest souls ! 
seek there the peace of stable faith, the rich means of Sal- 
vation. The See of Peter is your only secure anchorage. 

Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, expresses this with all 
his persuasive power when trouble threatened the Church 
in France. His touching words are as music to the ear 
and honey to the mouth: 

'^O Church of Borne! O Sacred City! O dear and com- 
mon country of all true Christians ! In Jesus Christ there 
is neither Greek, nor Scythian, nor Barbarian, nor Jew, nor 
Gentile; in thy bosom they are as one people; all are citizens 
of Eome, and every Catholic is a Roman. Behold the 
mighty stem which has been planted by the hand of Jesus 
Christ ! Every branch which is separated from it fades, 
withers and dies. O Mother ! whoever is a child of God is 
also thy child; after the lapse of so many ages thou art yet 
fruitful. O Spouse! thou bringest forth children to thy 
husband in every quarter of the globe ; but whence is it that 
so many unnatural children now contemn their Mother, arise 
up against her, and consider her as a cruel step-dame? 
^\Yhence is it that her authority should give them such vain 
offence? What! shall the sacred bond of union, which 
should unite every one in a single flock, and make all minis- 
ters as a single pastor, shall that be the pretext for a fatal 
dissension ? Shall we produce those times, which will be 
the last, when the Son of Man shall hardly find faith upon 
the earth? Let us tremble, my dearest brethren, let us 
tremble, lest the reign of God, which we abuse, should be 
taken away from us, and be given to other nations who will 
bear the fruits. Let us tremble, let us humble ourselves, 
lest Jesus Christ carry elsewhere the torch of pure faith, and 
leave us in that gloomy darkness which our pride has de- 
served. O Church, whence Peter will forever strengthen his 
brethren, let my right hand forget itself if ever I forget 
thee ! Let my tongue cleave to my mouth and be motion- 
less, if thou be not, to the last breath of life, the princi- 
pal object of my joy and my rejoicings." 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



CATHOLIC : Eighth Edition, much Enlarged. An Essential and 
Exclusive Attribute of the True Church, by Right Rev, Mon- 
signor Capel, D.D.; to which is appended St. Cyprian's whole 
"Treatise on the Unity of the Church," St. Cyril's "Lecture 
on the Catholic Church," St. Pacian's " Treatise on the name 
Catholic." 170 Pages. Price, 50 cents. Fr. Pustet & Co., 
New York and Cincinnati. 

•'But the value of Monsignor Capel's work goes far beyond the special oc- 
casion which induced its preparation and publication. It is a complete re- 
sume of the evidences, theological, and historical, that the Holy Komrin Apos- 
tolic Church, and it alone, has right to the name Catholic. The Hrgument is 
clear and conclusive, and the historical citations are as full as can be com- 
pressed into the compass of nearly one hundred octavo pages. " — The Am- 
erican Q>iarterly lievieio. 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. (Tenth Thousand.) 40 pp. 8vo.) 

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. (Twenty-fipst Thousand.) 

40 pp. 8vo. 

SINS OF THE TONGUE. A Sermon. (In Press.) 



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